A Downtown of Districts. This section opens up by defining the districts, both within and adjacent to downtown. The core districts within downtown are the obvious, like Main Street or the Arts, and some that I hadn't heard before, like Thanksgiving Commercial Center. This is a good example that some districts are nothing more than arbitrary lines. True districts, like Main or the West End exist within a common fabric. The rest of downtown is a motley collection of fortress office buildings, parking lots and leftover pre-WWII structures, lacking any true identity. I think this was a more political decision than a planning one.
Each district is identified, described and recommendations given for future development. I'm worried that just going through them will be monotonous, so I'll try to give my take on the district recommendations.
First up, for the Arts District (on the northern part of downtown), MIG foresees a streetcar along Ross with streetscape improvements, adding art and exhibits along Flora, reconstructing Harwood in the same manner as Flora and a redesign of Pearl to be more pedestrian-friendly.
This is the district I am the most ambivalent about. I just don't see anything making this area vibrant. I like the Pearl Street idea, but more out of principle of making the street less auto-centric, rather than adding life to the Arts District. It won't add life, the design of the area is just wrong. It will be a benefit to downtown, but it will make little difference to the Arts District. People will still go to the shows and people will still not go when there are no shows. Until there is more inclusivity in the design, that will never change.
Thanksgiving Commercial Center is next, the area roughly between the Main Street District and the Arts. The area is generally composed of fortress office buildings. To improve this district, streetscape improvements along Ervay, Harwood and Pearl, ensuring a stop along the McKinney Avenue Streetcar extension near the St. Paul light rail station, encourage conversion of the ground floor of the office buildings to retail and reduce the size of the park planned on the block by St. Paul and Live Oak to accommodate development are advocated.
These are all solid, if obvious. I don't think any transit planner would run a streetcar by a rail station and not have a stop. I don't think any non-transit planner would do that either. Streetscape improvements are a good idea. Ervay and Harwood, aside from the one-way, are quite pedestrian-friendly. I like the idea of reducing the park down. In fact, I think that park is redundant with Main Street Gardens two bocks away and Aston Park directly adjacent.
My only beef with these are the conversion of the office buildings first floor to retail. That sounds nice, but it overlooks the land-use equation. This is a solidly 9-5 area. There is already ground-floor retail in some areas. It is possible and in some cases probable that adding more would reinforce the existing retail, but what is there is sparsely used outside of business hours. Adding more uses aside from office would make the ground-floor conversion palpable. As it is, most non-business hour uses are well outside this area, making ground-floor retail a want rather than a possibility. The skywalks and tunnels pose a problem for this as well, since there is retail on these levels.
In Dallas' most urban and dynamic area, the Main Street District, more retail is wanted, as well as a streetcar connection Deep Ellum and the Trinity River, adding a branding campaign, streamlining parking, recruiting and retaining retail, converting the Grand Hotel from vacant to used and creating a Gateway at Lamar Street.
Retail will come when retail is warranted. This is something that occasionally bugs me about planners. Work on the stuff that needs changing. 20 years ago, retail was wanted, but there was no market. The area was also dead. There were abandoned office buildings, holes in the landscape with surface parking and an auto-oriented street. Incentives were offered to convert the buildings to residential, a surface lot was converted to a plaza, another was built into a residential tower over a garage, a lane was taken away and given to make the sidewalks wider, vehicle choke points were added at certain locations. Retail has come in some areas as the district has changed. Planners added residential and made a pedestrian-friendly street. Retail followed. You don't have to plan for retail. You have to leave space for it and in that regard, you have to plan for it. Otherwise, it will come when there is demand for it. As it stands now, there is not a lack of retail space.
I like the streetcar, but I think they made a slight mistake in that they just want to connect districts. That is fine, but transit doesn't work quite that way. I just don't see a demand for rides to the Trinity River. Deep Ellum, yes. Connection to Uptown and Oak Cliff, were existing or planned streetcar connections are make sense, as there are destinations and origins there now and will be in the future. A river, even with its planned recreation elements, won't likely create the demand for ridership.
The Grand is 1) already in the works and 2) contingent upon the private market. I advocate the developers and the Improvement District working together, but nothing is enforceable. That is one common criticism of the planning profession.
This set of recommendations seem to be nothing more than window dressing. Main Street District, of all areas in downtown, is the least in need of help and it shows.
In the Farmers Market, the planners envision a park along Pearl, calming of traffic and improving the pedestrian realm along Ceasar Chavez, developing an image or brand for the area, working with the Bridge, Dallas's homeless shelter, for safety issues and integrating a light rail stop on the next rail line in downtown.
A key part that seems to have been excluded is the West Village-type development just north of the market. I know it will be discussed in the small area plan, but that would seem to be a key recommendation for this area. I wonder if that is where they envision the park. As for the rail line, that is out of their hands. DART is working on it, but as par for the course, this plan seems to be lacking in the transportation department.
The Civic Center, on the south end, is where most government buildings are. The recommendations are to increase the connection to the Main Street District from City Hall Plaza, pursue the reuse of the Butler Brothers Building, redesign City Hall Plaza to be more vibrant, create a new residential development at Wood and Ervay and enhance Ervay with streetscape improvements.
Once again, hard to argue with these, though I do feel some are out of the planners control. Aside from incentives, there isn't much to make the Butler Brothers or a new residential building happen. The plaza remake has already been acted upon. Streetscape improvements are great, but the underlying land uses are what makes an area vibrant, and sadly, like the Arts District, this areas has poor uses and design for an urban area.
Speaking of poor areas, the Union/Reunion area is next. A land swap near Reunion for development, a deck park between the Houston and Jefferson Street viaducts, TOD near Union and a pedestrian promenade and streetcar stop on the Houston Viaduct are what the planners see as making this district vibrant.
While this all sounds fine, this area is detailed in later sections. I'll discuss it there as well. Just remember that I am not high on the plans or this area.
The final district is the West End, the second best urban district in downtown. For this area, the planners want a mixed-use development on a surface lot at Lamar and Ross, the reuse the West End Marketplace, a park at Market and Corbin, streetcars and enhance paving at Lamar and Ross, special events and an update and rebranding of the image.
Once again, it is hard to argue with these recommendations. The good news, aside from the mixed-use development, this is all within planners and decision makers control.
I do take a bit of exception with the adaptive reuse of the West End Marketplace, a former tourist-oriented structure that was a bit of a mall in function. The planners want to:
Re-tenant the West End Marketplace with complementary uses such a (typo in the original document, should be as) museum, hotel, or as a business incubator with strong ties to El Centro Community College, Bank of America, and the nearby Environmental Protection Agency office in Fountain Place to encourage innovative, creative/green economy business start-ups and partnerships.
I like the idea of not making this an indoor mall. I could see a hotel, but this too big for most any museum (and this isn't in the Arts District, where Dallas likes their museums :p). As for the incubator, it seems like they just named area tenants. For the EPA to have any use or connection with this building, they would need to cross the six-lane-and-median Griffin Street, otherwise known as the most car-oriented street in downtown. I think residential or hotel would be the better bet.
From here, the surrounding districts are analyzed in the same manner, though their descriptions are shorter. I'll try to be as brief.
For Victory, they want TOD's at DART stations and streetcar stops, to convert Houston street to the "front door" rather than the alley it is now and infill next to the new Museum near downtown.
In Uptown, the planners want walkable, transit oriented neighborhoods, improved walkability on select streets, workforce housing and links to the various bike trails.
On the northeast, in the Baylor District, the recommendations are to strengthen connections to the Arts District, new housing for working class (specifically between Deep Ellum Station and Central Expressway), enhance pedestrian connection to Baylor from Baylor Station, enhance links to the bike trails and reconfigure the Ross/San Jacinto intersection.
In Deep Ellum, cultivating artistic base, improve the pedestrian experience on Elm, Main, Commerce and Malcolm X, maintain a small property development style, bringing mixed-income residential, extend the freeway lighting and artwork and connect to bike trails are the planners recommendations.
At the Cedars, on the south side of downtown, the area needs to improve Ervay and add a streetcar, better use and market Heritage Village, higher intensity housing near Interstate-30, provide a fruit cart mix of housing, become an incubator for small business and enhance the connections along Belleview.
In the Southside, long considered the Cedars until this plan, planners advise a streetscape improvement along Lamar, decked development over I-30, streetcar along Lamar and enhanced connectivity along Belleview and Corinth.
On the west side, there's Riverfront and Design Districts, these are really the same area with no real distinction, so I will cover it as one too. MIG proposes native landscaping on industrial sites, access to the Jefferson/Houston deck park, redesigning Riverfront as a multi-modal street, a streetcar connecting the area to Victory Station and encourage cottage industry with live-work sites.
Nothing really jumped out at me in these districts, neither good nor bad. Some seem solid, streetscape improvements, adding active fronts toward the street and increasing housing options and ranges. Others, like the deck park and streetcar lines everywhere might be out of reach.
I am so glad this section is over. It seemed the most tedious and likely boring, though there was a lot of good information in there. I am looking forward to the next section, which will contain the teeth of the plan.
Showing posts with label districts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label districts. Show all posts
Monday, May 2, 2011
Monday, April 4, 2011
More Census Stuff
The pattern whereby I mention an item, and then later it appears in print somewhere continues.
First up, in the USA Today April Fool's Day edition, a headline reads "Young and educated show preference for urban living." No new figures or news really, just what we already know. Downtown's and urban living are an increasingly attractive living option, in this case, it's my generation and the college educated.
The more prudent piece of information is the info graphic on page five, in the link it is at the bottom of the page. Here, the top 51 metros are listed . Of that, only two experienced a decline in the young and educated population within the urban core, New Orleans and Birmingham, AL New Orleans is to be expected, given that they still haven't recovered from the hurricane.
USA Today ranks them in the paper version by growth percentage and DFW ranks tenth. I wonder about the rankings, since the explanation says "...and live within 3 miles of a metro area's central business district..." Fort Worth has a nice downtown, but it has fewer jobs than Dallas. Does that mean that all of the growth on the list is around downtown Dallas or does that include downtown Fort Worth? Either way, an additional 5,081 college educated folks now live near the DFW CBD, whatever that means.
Incidentally, St. Louis leads the way in percentage growth with 87 percent (a gain of 2,700) followed by Indianapolis at 83 (2,670), Miami at 68 (4,378) and Baltimore at 66 (8,625). New York led the way in absolute numbers with 26,126 (13%), followed by Boston with 20,558 (40), Philadelphia at 16,032 (57) and Chicago with 15, 887 (33).
I bring those up because the highest percentage growers generally added only a couple of thousand and still have a ways to go in order to achieve a vibrant downtown. Those with the highest number added were generally lower growth percentages. When dealing with stats, it is important to keep things in perspective. Using percentages, we can make the claim that DFW is better than established urban areas. Using pure numbers we see otherwise. Generally speaking, the more people per square mile, the more vibrant (other things like design, transportation and use certainly play a factor too).
Next up, from the Dallas Morning News Sunday paper. An interesting graphic showing vacancy among census tracts. I can only show the link but not the graphic because I don't subscribe to their pay site. It is a map of the eastern section of the region. Green means a vacancy rate less than 5 percent and red is over 30. The map is predominantly green, with islands of red throughout. Much of these are due to projects just coming on line or about to come on line when the count was taken.
This is why I cautioned against putting too much emphasis on census numbers. For all their use, they are really just a look at that particular time period. Some of those projects are filled and would change to green were the Census done this year.
Also, giving the critics a voice, is the issue of immigrants arose. From the article:
And other factors can make collecting accurate information difficult, she (Angelina Avalos) added. Some residents are illegal immigrants and unwilling to talk with someone from the government. Many work two jobs and are rarely at home.
"And some of the people are living in apartments that aren't furnished," she said. "So even if someone peeked through the windows, it would look empty."
That may explain why a lot of the areas near the central core are the in between shades. It also explains why a lot of cities, unlike a lot of suburbs, are planning to contest those numbers. The Census may not be entirely accurate, but as of now, it is the best system we have.
Finally, again from the Dallas Morning News on Monday, is a story about how the redistricting of the City Council Districts will be a messy and political one. While that is interesting, that is beyond the scope of this post. What isn't is the map accompanying the story. Since I can't post it, I'll try to recreate it, albeit crudely.
The following map is taken from here. Had I the time or inclination, I could have done a GIS whose color scheme made sense (I should do that anyway).
Districts 1, 2, 6, 7, 10 and 13 saw a more than five percent population loss.
9 and 11 lost between zero and five percent.
4 gained between zero and five percent.
3, 5, 8, 12 and 14 gained over five percent.
I bring this up because the only "inner" city council district that gained population was the one that encompassed downtown, uptown, Deep Ellum and Knox-Henderson, or the inner urban core of Dallas, District 14. That relates directly to this post I made, Dallas would have lost population had they not invested in their urban neighborhoods. Now yes, had District 3 or 8 not grown too, Dallas would have lost population, but they all work together (BTW, District 3 includes parts of North Oak Cliff, which is also a resurgent urban neighborhood).
District 14's growth is made all the more impressive when you consider the western portion did lose population. The M Streets and especially Lower Greenville area are old street car suburbs and quite walkable, and thereby attractive in today's market.
Dallas would do well to heed this warning. Areas that are walkable grew while most of those that aren't really didn't. Since most of the lost population districts are in the north, in old suburban-like neighborhoods that were built between the 50's and 70's, now is a great time to analyze what can be done to renovate/revitalize those areas into more walkable and pedestrian-friendly areas, lest Dallas gets further behind in the growing urban trend.
First up, in the USA Today April Fool's Day edition, a headline reads "Young and educated show preference for urban living." No new figures or news really, just what we already know. Downtown's and urban living are an increasingly attractive living option, in this case, it's my generation and the college educated.
The more prudent piece of information is the info graphic on page five, in the link it is at the bottom of the page. Here, the top 51 metros are listed . Of that, only two experienced a decline in the young and educated population within the urban core, New Orleans and Birmingham, AL New Orleans is to be expected, given that they still haven't recovered from the hurricane.
USA Today ranks them in the paper version by growth percentage and DFW ranks tenth. I wonder about the rankings, since the explanation says "...and live within 3 miles of a metro area's central business district..." Fort Worth has a nice downtown, but it has fewer jobs than Dallas. Does that mean that all of the growth on the list is around downtown Dallas or does that include downtown Fort Worth? Either way, an additional 5,081 college educated folks now live near the DFW CBD, whatever that means.
Incidentally, St. Louis leads the way in percentage growth with 87 percent (a gain of 2,700) followed by Indianapolis at 83 (2,670), Miami at 68 (4,378) and Baltimore at 66 (8,625). New York led the way in absolute numbers with 26,126 (13%), followed by Boston with 20,558 (40), Philadelphia at 16,032 (57) and Chicago with 15, 887 (33).
I bring those up because the highest percentage growers generally added only a couple of thousand and still have a ways to go in order to achieve a vibrant downtown. Those with the highest number added were generally lower growth percentages. When dealing with stats, it is important to keep things in perspective. Using percentages, we can make the claim that DFW is better than established urban areas. Using pure numbers we see otherwise. Generally speaking, the more people per square mile, the more vibrant (other things like design, transportation and use certainly play a factor too).
Next up, from the Dallas Morning News Sunday paper. An interesting graphic showing vacancy among census tracts. I can only show the link but not the graphic because I don't subscribe to their pay site. It is a map of the eastern section of the region. Green means a vacancy rate less than 5 percent and red is over 30. The map is predominantly green, with islands of red throughout. Much of these are due to projects just coming on line or about to come on line when the count was taken.
This is why I cautioned against putting too much emphasis on census numbers. For all their use, they are really just a look at that particular time period. Some of those projects are filled and would change to green were the Census done this year.
Also, giving the critics a voice, is the issue of immigrants arose. From the article:
And other factors can make collecting accurate information difficult, she (Angelina Avalos) added. Some residents are illegal immigrants and unwilling to talk with someone from the government. Many work two jobs and are rarely at home.
"And some of the people are living in apartments that aren't furnished," she said. "So even if someone peeked through the windows, it would look empty."
That may explain why a lot of the areas near the central core are the in between shades. It also explains why a lot of cities, unlike a lot of suburbs, are planning to contest those numbers. The Census may not be entirely accurate, but as of now, it is the best system we have.
Finally, again from the Dallas Morning News on Monday, is a story about how the redistricting of the City Council Districts will be a messy and political one. While that is interesting, that is beyond the scope of this post. What isn't is the map accompanying the story. Since I can't post it, I'll try to recreate it, albeit crudely.
The following map is taken from here. Had I the time or inclination, I could have done a GIS whose color scheme made sense (I should do that anyway).
9 and 11 lost between zero and five percent.
4 gained between zero and five percent.
3, 5, 8, 12 and 14 gained over five percent.
I bring this up because the only "inner" city council district that gained population was the one that encompassed downtown, uptown, Deep Ellum and Knox-Henderson, or the inner urban core of Dallas, District 14. That relates directly to this post I made, Dallas would have lost population had they not invested in their urban neighborhoods. Now yes, had District 3 or 8 not grown too, Dallas would have lost population, but they all work together (BTW, District 3 includes parts of North Oak Cliff, which is also a resurgent urban neighborhood).
District 14's growth is made all the more impressive when you consider the western portion did lose population. The M Streets and especially Lower Greenville area are old street car suburbs and quite walkable, and thereby attractive in today's market.
Dallas would do well to heed this warning. Areas that are walkable grew while most of those that aren't really didn't. Since most of the lost population districts are in the north, in old suburban-like neighborhoods that were built between the 50's and 70's, now is a great time to analyze what can be done to renovate/revitalize those areas into more walkable and pedestrian-friendly areas, lest Dallas gets further behind in the growing urban trend.
Monday, February 21, 2011
Downtown Dallas 360 (long)
I've delayed my critique of the latest plan released for downtown Dallas called the 360 plan. It was released last week and I have tried to read up on it as much as possible before commenting. There's the brief references in the Dallas Morning News' Metro section, in the editorials, Unfair Park, and the blogs. I have tried to gather information as much as I could.
For more meatier references, here's the PDF presented to City Hall, pretty generic really. There's a lot of pictures from somewhere else using buzzwords of the current planning paradigm. Toward the end, there starts to be something more specific regarding certain areas like Reunion, Farmers Market and Main Street.
This one is a bit more specific, though not technically part of the plan itself, but rather one of the last PDF's late last year about the final phases of the plan. It has a bit more info, not surprising since it is three times as long. This is also the one that I will reference throughout the rest of the post.
And finally, this website supposedly contains the plan, though I couldn't find anything current. I glanced at the parking section, and will defiantly comment on that later.
I'll begin with the subtitle. This has been presented as Quick Wins and Bold Ideas. I absolutely hate the first part. Quick wins aren't going to solve anything. Instead of doing the right thing right now, the idea of quick wins is more along the lines of maintaining the status quo. The main things downtown needs are streets that are less focused on the car, places that are properly designed on the street level (ie ground-floor retail vs. fortress stand-alone office tower) and less gaps in the urban environment. I really saw little that accomplished those things.
Instead, the quick wins were a lot of cosmetic things like landscaping Main Street, among other things.
The problem is that landscaping, in the name of increasing pedestrian amenities, can actually make things worse. The following two pictures were taken on Main Street between Pearl and Ceasar Chavez. They are part of a landscape improvement in the 2006 bond package.
At first glance, the new concrete look and bricks near the curb are pleasant. However, when it comes to actual use, it can be quite cramped.
Look at the first one and use the white car as a reference point. Between the lamp post on the left and the shrubs on the right, only two people can comfortably fit. That landscaping has taken away pedestrian space and decreased the capacity of the sidewalk. On a Sunday, the wife and I walked by this very point and I had to walk behind her to let someone else pass. We had to stop our conversation and slow our pace, which is the antithesis of a quality urban environment. Outside of a park, the only landscaping I really approve of are trees. They help provide shade while providing a color difference to the concrete jungle. Shrubs do the second, usually at the expense space. The only redeeming factor of shrubs is the look and that is not enough.
I have no idea what the designer/architect was thinking in the second picture. Clearly, the lower half near the street is virtually impassable. Between the banister, the light pole and the meters, the sidewalk capacity is halfed. The upper half is where all the traffic will be going. It is ok to have a sloping sidewalk. The grade here in minimal enough not to be an issue. There is clearly a bump where the banister is with each side at virtually the same grade. Sadly, this has happened elsewhere in downtown the last few years. And in each of those places, an artificial bottleneck has been created, as this will be too when completed.
However, the main point has been glossed over. Main between Field and Ervay is just fine now. What really needs help is everything else. No part of Elm or Commerce (or any other street for that matter) is at the level Main is now. As I will mention in my long-delayed post about the AT&T renovation, the big grocery store, Urban Market, was put several blocks away by city mandate, yet we don't do anything to ensure its connectivity to the main urban section of downtown. The reality is, as I have mentioned before, it is that linear or corridor thinking that Dallas loves to do.
Great urban areas are not built upon lines, but rather districts and neighborhoods. If you were to walk the length of Manhattan, you would not be able to delineate the exact boundary between Greenwich, SoHo, Midtown, Chelsea or the Meatpacking District. In essence, they all feed of of each other. If one of those neighborhoods were cut out and placed in Dallas, the activity and vibrance immediately declines. Without the other districts reinforcing the others vibrancy, it all falls apart.
The plan also gies a street classification system, which is different than what most every plan and planner uses. I am absolutely against their classification (page 49). The really pedestrian- or close to pedestrian-friendly streets like Main, Lamar or Harwood get called a "streetcar boulevard" while the designation of "District Connector" goes to the car-heavy streets like Griffin, Pearl and the soon-to-be-widened Ceasar Chavez. Sadly, Elm and Commerce get the District label. The rest of the streets are nothing more than freeway connections to and through downtown. It is really sad that Elm and Commerce are considered in the same ilk.
Every other street gets a neighborhood or special use street, though oddly enough some streets are listed in multiple category.
The linear thinking continues as the plan transitions into the Lamar Street corridor. I can not for the life of me think why this corridor is that important over the other streets in downtown. On page 70, the only reason this area is given consideration is ...
Accessible to historic, cultural and civic resources
Destination for regional, national and international sports and convention tourists
I don't know why that is reason to include an area. But again, this goes against district thinking. And on top of that, south of Main Street, there is little on Lamar besides a Greyhound Station, a warehouse-turned-office building, the convention center and lots and lots of surface parking lots.
The district that best exemplifies what could be on paper and in reality is the Farmers Market. Minus a tract across from the Camden and north of the Farmers Market, this area is largely built out. What it called fits the area and also its needs. I think this is A) the most likely of their ideas to come to fruition and B) the best idea within the plan.
The final district I wish to comment on is the Reunion District. I can't help but think these are pie-in-the sky ideas. I'll reference the graphic on page 149, but won't post the picture because the labels are too small to read.
First, the area they are calling for is the most isolated in downtown. On the one end is the rail lines. Light rail AND freight rail prevent any crossing to the main part of downtown. On the west is I-35E, the most traveled interstate in Texas and on the north is the main exit ramp from 35 into downtown. Last, I-30 bounds Reunion on the south. There are only three ways into Reunion. That is not urban in any way. If there plans come about, this will be the most isolated neighborhood in Dallas. Might as well put a gate up and armed guard in a booth at the entrances. It will have the same effect.
I also just can't follow the graphic around the Dallas Morning News area south of Young either. It calls for smaller blocks in that area and draws some streets on the map, but there are existing buildings there. Unless they think Belo and newspapers are doing so badly that they will just sell everything, that will never happen. The odd thing is the streets are shown to connect to Houston and Market, but in those areas, those are bridges to Oak Cliff, concrete structures on pillars, not at-grade streets.
When it says mixed-use rising to the Houston Street Viaduct, I can only assume they mean a connection at the bridge level, particularly since they call for a stop on the upcoming streetcar line on Houston Street. If not, I doubt many people will want to climb three to five stories worth of stairs to get to the streetcar.
While the idea of a deck park between the Houston and Jefferson bridges and over I-35E is appealing at first, I just don't think it is feasible. The cost is high, and the payoffs to an isolated area leading to the future Trinity Park (which has been a future park for 13 years now and the earmark ban putting its main source of funding in doubt) seems to be unnecessary.
In my opinion, the Reunion area is the least likely to succeed. Its transportation network has ensured that it is isolated and this plan does nothing to relieve that constraint. If I were a guessing man, I would gander that Belo, which has a lot of influence within Downtown Dallas Inc., and Woodbine development, also with a lot of influence, had a say in this.
The parking plan was at least a bit more amenable to me than the main plan. There were somethings I liked, but there were also flaws. I am always a bit weary when I hear something that attempts to bring convenient parking to downtown. I've said it before, you can't outsuburb the suburbs. They were built around the car and as a result, are built to be convenient to them. Downtown is not nor will it ever be convenient for the car. What it can be, that the suburbs can never, is a true urban environment.
This idea that there is a perceived shortage of parking in downtown is valid to the suburbanites coming to downtown. They are used to the big box parking lot that is full only around Christmas and the get a spot 50 feet from the door. It doesn't work like that in downtown, which means it gets a perception of not having enough parking.
Many people credit downtown Fort Worth's success to the subsidized (roughly $2 million a year) free parking. I tend to disagree. Because downtown Fort Worth had solid urban bones, and because the 70's and 80's building boom largely passed it by, and because the developers, the Bass Brothers, did proper urban design, it became an attractive place to work, live and play. When a place is attractive, people will come.
Back to the plan, the call for more on-street parking to meet short-term demand appeals to me. The lack of on-street spaces still baffles me. It really shows the conflict between the car and a proper urban area. I like that the authors are calling for more. The real question is how will the traffic engineers respond?
Secondly, I like a lot of the management principles. Getting rid of the time limit and installing market-based pricing is really solid. Market-based is really the counter argument to free parking. If the market will bare paid parking now, switching to a market-based strategy will maximize supply to demand. It will also quiet calls for free parking to some degree, since if the place is so unattended, the price will be lowered to near-nothing eventually. But, if the spaces always maintain an eighty percent occupancy rate, then obviously the price is right and the place is attractive enough to bring the cars in.
One of the things that caught my eye was the cash-out strategy to reduce parking demand. In essence, parking is seen as a benefit at the workplace. The space to park is not free (no matter whether urban or suburban) and places that have free parking subsidize it, in this case for their employees. Now those who take transit are essentially losing out on a benefit. So with cash out, employees decide whether they want a parking space, or the equivalent worth of the space in their pay check. Go here to get a more in depth explanation of cash out parking.
I'm just not sure if it is legal in Texas or if a law would need to be changed. In places where this has been implemented, driving alone has decreased and transit use has increased. This would be a great way to alleviate perceived parking shortages.
Other things like bringing in a management entity, new meter technology and customer service are decent, so what is my hang-up? First, here's a graphic issuing supply and demand.
Sadly, I do not know how they arrived at the numbers above. There is no way to get a solid number of demand, especially since car travel is not a simple supply and demand function. The more parking spaces provided might actually have an inverse effect on the attractiveness of an urban area. Parking lots and garages can and do cause holes to shred the urban environment. The only way they work (and not optimally) is through mixed-use, similar to the Third Rail Lofts garage (the plan does call for it at least).
The main shortfall of the parking plan is the lack of a real mention of alternatives to parking. There's a lot of parking-related ideas, which are valid, but nothing non-parking to relieve the need. Increased use of transit negates some need for parking spaces. They suggest more parking and in another part, more transit. They don't add together.
In there, I read something about encouraging retailers to move up from the tunnels. However, with nothing concrete in either incentives of moving them up or details of shuttering all or part of the system, I am just left to wonder. Page 155 is the only mention, and when the word develop is used, it obviously is esoteric at this time. It's a shame, since closing of the tunnels would be a very quick win in increasing the street vibrance and therefore the attractiveness of downtown.
I come away with two fundamental questions.
The first, the lack of a transit section and the mentions that are made are pitiful. They consistently show an alignment for the second rail line that Dallas Area Rapid Transit, the builder and operator, has said in not feasible and will never happen. It stems from the desire to add a station to the Convention Center Hotel, which of all the alignments studied by DART, has the least effective ridership numbers and is the most costly.
The streetcar maps are conceptual and I doubt have done any land-use studies or modeling estimates to refine alignment or to even determine feasibility. Typical Dallas, focus so much energy on cars and ignore everything else. When I said earlier that downtown can not out-suburb the suburbs, they can out urban them and transit is a huge part of that. By running a rail line to the most vacant, empty and poorly designed part of downtown, it will ensure that the urban experience and ridership is suppressed. Combined with an urban redesign of the street, a rail line under Commerce would mean so much more for the rider, urban participant and downtown.
Second, many of the ideas and suggestions will require private participation, approval and capital. Parking lot owners are making a profit on their lot, at the expense of the urban environment. I see nothing that will encourage them to build.
I also see nothing that will encourage them to build according to the plan. As is usual with Dallas, the developer will run the show at City Hall and get the required approvals needed, whether they fit the guidelines of the plan or not. While planning boards are supposed to pass decisions based on the comprehensive plan and any supporting plans, often in Texas in general and Dallas in specific, that is not the case.
The last critique of the plan is a common one for planning in general in Texas. This is a property rights state after all, for the good (private) and bad (usually public).
For more meatier references, here's the PDF presented to City Hall, pretty generic really. There's a lot of pictures from somewhere else using buzzwords of the current planning paradigm. Toward the end, there starts to be something more specific regarding certain areas like Reunion, Farmers Market and Main Street.
This one is a bit more specific, though not technically part of the plan itself, but rather one of the last PDF's late last year about the final phases of the plan. It has a bit more info, not surprising since it is three times as long. This is also the one that I will reference throughout the rest of the post.
And finally, this website supposedly contains the plan, though I couldn't find anything current. I glanced at the parking section, and will defiantly comment on that later.
I'll begin with the subtitle. This has been presented as Quick Wins and Bold Ideas. I absolutely hate the first part. Quick wins aren't going to solve anything. Instead of doing the right thing right now, the idea of quick wins is more along the lines of maintaining the status quo. The main things downtown needs are streets that are less focused on the car, places that are properly designed on the street level (ie ground-floor retail vs. fortress stand-alone office tower) and less gaps in the urban environment. I really saw little that accomplished those things.
Instead, the quick wins were a lot of cosmetic things like landscaping Main Street, among other things.
The problem is that landscaping, in the name of increasing pedestrian amenities, can actually make things worse. The following two pictures were taken on Main Street between Pearl and Ceasar Chavez. They are part of a landscape improvement in the 2006 bond package.
Look at the first one and use the white car as a reference point. Between the lamp post on the left and the shrubs on the right, only two people can comfortably fit. That landscaping has taken away pedestrian space and decreased the capacity of the sidewalk. On a Sunday, the wife and I walked by this very point and I had to walk behind her to let someone else pass. We had to stop our conversation and slow our pace, which is the antithesis of a quality urban environment. Outside of a park, the only landscaping I really approve of are trees. They help provide shade while providing a color difference to the concrete jungle. Shrubs do the second, usually at the expense space. The only redeeming factor of shrubs is the look and that is not enough.
I have no idea what the designer/architect was thinking in the second picture. Clearly, the lower half near the street is virtually impassable. Between the banister, the light pole and the meters, the sidewalk capacity is halfed. The upper half is where all the traffic will be going. It is ok to have a sloping sidewalk. The grade here in minimal enough not to be an issue. There is clearly a bump where the banister is with each side at virtually the same grade. Sadly, this has happened elsewhere in downtown the last few years. And in each of those places, an artificial bottleneck has been created, as this will be too when completed.
However, the main point has been glossed over. Main between Field and Ervay is just fine now. What really needs help is everything else. No part of Elm or Commerce (or any other street for that matter) is at the level Main is now. As I will mention in my long-delayed post about the AT&T renovation, the big grocery store, Urban Market, was put several blocks away by city mandate, yet we don't do anything to ensure its connectivity to the main urban section of downtown. The reality is, as I have mentioned before, it is that linear or corridor thinking that Dallas loves to do.
Great urban areas are not built upon lines, but rather districts and neighborhoods. If you were to walk the length of Manhattan, you would not be able to delineate the exact boundary between Greenwich, SoHo, Midtown, Chelsea or the Meatpacking District. In essence, they all feed of of each other. If one of those neighborhoods were cut out and placed in Dallas, the activity and vibrance immediately declines. Without the other districts reinforcing the others vibrancy, it all falls apart.
The plan also gies a street classification system, which is different than what most every plan and planner uses. I am absolutely against their classification (page 49). The really pedestrian- or close to pedestrian-friendly streets like Main, Lamar or Harwood get called a "streetcar boulevard" while the designation of "District Connector" goes to the car-heavy streets like Griffin, Pearl and the soon-to-be-widened Ceasar Chavez. Sadly, Elm and Commerce get the District label. The rest of the streets are nothing more than freeway connections to and through downtown. It is really sad that Elm and Commerce are considered in the same ilk.
Every other street gets a neighborhood or special use street, though oddly enough some streets are listed in multiple category.
The linear thinking continues as the plan transitions into the Lamar Street corridor. I can not for the life of me think why this corridor is that important over the other streets in downtown. On page 70, the only reason this area is given consideration is ...
Accessible to historic, cultural and civic resources
Destination for regional, national and international sports and convention tourists
Overall, I am disappointed in the plan. It ignores the basic aspects of what needs to be done, while doing things that are superfluous. Downtown once again is likely to be held back from what it could be, and that is where the real travesty is.
Supporting residential and student housing
Sports-related venues, live music/events, family friendly restaurants
Wide range of visitororiented retail, lodging, and entertainment
Sports-related venues, live music/events, family friendly restaurants
Wide range of visitororiented retail, lodging, and entertainment
I don't know why that is reason to include an area. But again, this goes against district thinking. And on top of that, south of Main Street, there is little on Lamar besides a Greyhound Station, a warehouse-turned-office building, the convention center and lots and lots of surface parking lots.
The district that best exemplifies what could be on paper and in reality is the Farmers Market. Minus a tract across from the Camden and north of the Farmers Market, this area is largely built out. What it called fits the area and also its needs. I think this is A) the most likely of their ideas to come to fruition and B) the best idea within the plan.
The final district I wish to comment on is the Reunion District. I can't help but think these are pie-in-the sky ideas. I'll reference the graphic on page 149, but won't post the picture because the labels are too small to read.
First, the area they are calling for is the most isolated in downtown. On the one end is the rail lines. Light rail AND freight rail prevent any crossing to the main part of downtown. On the west is I-35E, the most traveled interstate in Texas and on the north is the main exit ramp from 35 into downtown. Last, I-30 bounds Reunion on the south. There are only three ways into Reunion. That is not urban in any way. If there plans come about, this will be the most isolated neighborhood in Dallas. Might as well put a gate up and armed guard in a booth at the entrances. It will have the same effect.
I also just can't follow the graphic around the Dallas Morning News area south of Young either. It calls for smaller blocks in that area and draws some streets on the map, but there are existing buildings there. Unless they think Belo and newspapers are doing so badly that they will just sell everything, that will never happen. The odd thing is the streets are shown to connect to Houston and Market, but in those areas, those are bridges to Oak Cliff, concrete structures on pillars, not at-grade streets.
When it says mixed-use rising to the Houston Street Viaduct, I can only assume they mean a connection at the bridge level, particularly since they call for a stop on the upcoming streetcar line on Houston Street. If not, I doubt many people will want to climb three to five stories worth of stairs to get to the streetcar.
While the idea of a deck park between the Houston and Jefferson bridges and over I-35E is appealing at first, I just don't think it is feasible. The cost is high, and the payoffs to an isolated area leading to the future Trinity Park (which has been a future park for 13 years now and the earmark ban putting its main source of funding in doubt) seems to be unnecessary.
In my opinion, the Reunion area is the least likely to succeed. Its transportation network has ensured that it is isolated and this plan does nothing to relieve that constraint. If I were a guessing man, I would gander that Belo, which has a lot of influence within Downtown Dallas Inc., and Woodbine development, also with a lot of influence, had a say in this.
The parking plan was at least a bit more amenable to me than the main plan. There were somethings I liked, but there were also flaws. I am always a bit weary when I hear something that attempts to bring convenient parking to downtown. I've said it before, you can't outsuburb the suburbs. They were built around the car and as a result, are built to be convenient to them. Downtown is not nor will it ever be convenient for the car. What it can be, that the suburbs can never, is a true urban environment.
This idea that there is a perceived shortage of parking in downtown is valid to the suburbanites coming to downtown. They are used to the big box parking lot that is full only around Christmas and the get a spot 50 feet from the door. It doesn't work like that in downtown, which means it gets a perception of not having enough parking.
Many people credit downtown Fort Worth's success to the subsidized (roughly $2 million a year) free parking. I tend to disagree. Because downtown Fort Worth had solid urban bones, and because the 70's and 80's building boom largely passed it by, and because the developers, the Bass Brothers, did proper urban design, it became an attractive place to work, live and play. When a place is attractive, people will come.
Back to the plan, the call for more on-street parking to meet short-term demand appeals to me. The lack of on-street spaces still baffles me. It really shows the conflict between the car and a proper urban area. I like that the authors are calling for more. The real question is how will the traffic engineers respond?
Secondly, I like a lot of the management principles. Getting rid of the time limit and installing market-based pricing is really solid. Market-based is really the counter argument to free parking. If the market will bare paid parking now, switching to a market-based strategy will maximize supply to demand. It will also quiet calls for free parking to some degree, since if the place is so unattended, the price will be lowered to near-nothing eventually. But, if the spaces always maintain an eighty percent occupancy rate, then obviously the price is right and the place is attractive enough to bring the cars in.
One of the things that caught my eye was the cash-out strategy to reduce parking demand. In essence, parking is seen as a benefit at the workplace. The space to park is not free (no matter whether urban or suburban) and places that have free parking subsidize it, in this case for their employees. Now those who take transit are essentially losing out on a benefit. So with cash out, employees decide whether they want a parking space, or the equivalent worth of the space in their pay check. Go here to get a more in depth explanation of cash out parking.
I'm just not sure if it is legal in Texas or if a law would need to be changed. In places where this has been implemented, driving alone has decreased and transit use has increased. This would be a great way to alleviate perceived parking shortages.
Other things like bringing in a management entity, new meter technology and customer service are decent, so what is my hang-up? First, here's a graphic issuing supply and demand.
Sadly, I do not know how they arrived at the numbers above. There is no way to get a solid number of demand, especially since car travel is not a simple supply and demand function. The more parking spaces provided might actually have an inverse effect on the attractiveness of an urban area. Parking lots and garages can and do cause holes to shred the urban environment. The only way they work (and not optimally) is through mixed-use, similar to the Third Rail Lofts garage (the plan does call for it at least).
The main shortfall of the parking plan is the lack of a real mention of alternatives to parking. There's a lot of parking-related ideas, which are valid, but nothing non-parking to relieve the need. Increased use of transit negates some need for parking spaces. They suggest more parking and in another part, more transit. They don't add together.
In there, I read something about encouraging retailers to move up from the tunnels. However, with nothing concrete in either incentives of moving them up or details of shuttering all or part of the system, I am just left to wonder. Page 155 is the only mention, and when the word develop is used, it obviously is esoteric at this time. It's a shame, since closing of the tunnels would be a very quick win in increasing the street vibrance and therefore the attractiveness of downtown.
I come away with two fundamental questions.
The first, the lack of a transit section and the mentions that are made are pitiful. They consistently show an alignment for the second rail line that Dallas Area Rapid Transit, the builder and operator, has said in not feasible and will never happen. It stems from the desire to add a station to the Convention Center Hotel, which of all the alignments studied by DART, has the least effective ridership numbers and is the most costly.
The streetcar maps are conceptual and I doubt have done any land-use studies or modeling estimates to refine alignment or to even determine feasibility. Typical Dallas, focus so much energy on cars and ignore everything else. When I said earlier that downtown can not out-suburb the suburbs, they can out urban them and transit is a huge part of that. By running a rail line to the most vacant, empty and poorly designed part of downtown, it will ensure that the urban experience and ridership is suppressed. Combined with an urban redesign of the street, a rail line under Commerce would mean so much more for the rider, urban participant and downtown.
Second, many of the ideas and suggestions will require private participation, approval and capital. Parking lot owners are making a profit on their lot, at the expense of the urban environment. I see nothing that will encourage them to build.
I also see nothing that will encourage them to build according to the plan. As is usual with Dallas, the developer will run the show at City Hall and get the required approvals needed, whether they fit the guidelines of the plan or not. While planning boards are supposed to pass decisions based on the comprehensive plan and any supporting plans, often in Texas in general and Dallas in specific, that is not the case.
The last critique of the plan is a common one for planning in general in Texas. This is a property rights state after all, for the good (private) and bad (usually public).
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