Streetscape Concept Starting Point, but not Finished

Over at SCV they're talking up the "streetscape" project from a few years ago. (Part 1, part 2, part 3.)

Unfortunately it has what look like some holes, and while elements from it might be incorporated into a winning proposal for reconfiguring our downtown streets, if it is considered at all a "final" concept, it still could benefit from some refinement.

There's no Family-Friendly Biking Yet

Billed as something that would "make downtown both more attractive, and also more pedestrian/cyclist friendly," it might offer some improvement for people who already feel confident biking in downtown traffic, but it doesn't quite represent improvements for family-friendly cycling. It is a great help that auto traffic lanes would be in some cases reduced, of course, but there are no protected bike lanes for families or people who bike irregularly.

Court Street Concept, June 2013

In fairness, the Downtown Mobility Study's recommendations also retained the angle parking and had no bike lane for Court Street. It doesn't attain "family-friendly" either. But if we aren't going to have bike lanes and we are going to keep all the angled parking, I'd rather have two-way travel lanes than to retain the one-way directionality.

Channelizing on Liberty/Commercial

For the Liberty/Commercial couplet, the concept proposes a reallocation of auto travel lanes and a corresponding slowing of traffic. Those are positives! But the space from a travel lane will go to a new center median with a parking strip. While traffic will be slower, it's basically a shared lane configuration for bike travel and would be equivalent to sharrows. The parking configuration would make for a constrained environment: Lots of door-opening and backing up. This still would not be family-friendly biking.

On Oakland Street in SF, a Planter protects a bike lane
(via Green Lane Project)

In the five years since the Mobility Study conversations, though, more and more evidence has accumulated for the benefits of protected bike lanes on downtown streets, and we should reconsider configurations for the State/Court couplet as well as the Liberty/Commercial couplet.

The Approach to Street Furniture is Inflexible

Curvy hedgey things atop brick planters

Some of the purpose for the "garden" concept is apparently for

Slowing down pedestrians -- changing point A to point B behaviors by interrupting long city concrete blocks with gentle green curves. Enjoy a variety of extraordinary plant material.

But is too speedy walking really the problem downtown? And if it is, is the problem to solve that there's not enough barriers to deflect people or things to look at? Or is the problem that there are too many zoomy cars?

It's not always easy to discern the planter configurations in the drawings, but they look to be curved brick planters that mostly run perpendicular to the flow of walking. Since they won't be able to contribute to the carrying capacity of the sidewalk - and indeed explicitly are meant to "interrupt" - as permanent fixtures they may represent ornaments that waste the sidewalk space a little. On a smaller scale, they are a little bit of "ornamental emptiness." This piece does not actually look like something that really improves walkability. Maybe as more detail comes out there will be reason to reconsider, but I see this as something that clogs the sidewalk rather than enlivens it.

Lord & Schryver is an Awkward Touchstone for Downtown Design

"The general design of the project would follow the design principles of nationally renowned Salem landscape architects Lord & Schryver."

Overall this whole Lord & Schryver angle has seemed also a little strange. 

One of the early commissions, the large garden and grounds
for the Jarman House by the Library
(via On the Way)

Lord & Schryver started up early in the Depression, 1929 in fact, working for wealthy clients who could afford formal gardens in the early 1930s. This was not a populist art!

Moreover, the formal garden tradition had its roots in technologies and designs of 17th century fortifications - think about all the geometry of the box hedge - and with the aristocracy. Formal gardens are about war, power, and wealth. In general they are not gentle, soothing, meditative things! We might want gardens and greenery to be lovely and calm and nurturing ("Let the garden embrace you" remains the Conservancy's motto), but this particular tradition of formal garden is not primarily that, no matter how much we might try to reinterpret it today.

I know. We celebrate fancy buildings by eminent architects, and these were usually expressions of wealth or prosperity also. But the best buildings downtown are often on a second-tier, somewhat plainer ones that have proved more flexible. Our fancy City Hall was demolished. The McGilchrist and Roth buildings remain. There is a certain pragmatic plainness that we might want to consider more fully here.

Too much Parking

Finally, a real philosophical beef. The extra space from the auto travel lanes appears to be mostly allocated to auto parking.

Parking detail on Liberty/Commercial

This approach is essentially the same as the approach to building new roads and courts "induced demand." The new parking stalls will quickly fill up and people will still say "there's not enough parking." Rather than better utilizing our existing parking capacity in our parking garages that are rarely half-full, the concept proposes to clog the street with more auto parking, more door opening, more backing out.

The center median and its sidewalk will also encourage - even require - midblock crosswalks, formally striped, or informally and jaywalky. This detail would need significantly more thought.

The new parking in a center median is a move in the wrong direction, notwithstanding the allure of slower auto traffic and a reduction in travel lanes. This is not more peoplespace, but essentially remains carspace.

What about the Funding?

There is talk that because the Conference Center will soon be paid off, there could be a substantial pot of Urban Renewal Funds available to bond, up to $30 million.

As much as "street reform" is a passion here, what downtown needs even more is housing. Downtown really needs more market-rate housing, and it needs a judicious mix of affordable, subsidized housing so that downtown doesn't become just a playground for the prosperous.

I would prefer to see a comprehensive street redesign be part of the next road bond or other transportation package and to see the urban renewal dollars going more to support housing and ancillary redevelopment.

Maybe that's wrong, but housing really seems like the more urgent need for Urban Renewal dollars - and of course more people living downtown will be more customers for business, customers who are able often to walk rather than drive!

Overall a Good Starting Point

In the "streetscape" concept there is the start of some good ideas, but it needs more thorough consideration for what people on foot and on bike really need, and more consideration for how auto traffic and provisions for auto parking best fit. By providing more on-street car parking and by "interrupting" people walking on the sidewalks, it falls short of a new vision for our downtown streets. It remains a little autoist.

If the concept is a conversation starting point, then "hooray!" But if it's a final concept, then it needs more work.