Tag: opinion

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Development News Politics Transportation

Lessons from Charlotte – Rail Transit

Rail transit is in its infancy stages in Charlotte, but it is coming on strong. A starter light rail line with dual functioning streetcar service is leading the charge for a northern light rail extension and a new east/west streetcar line that will connect their two largest employment centers (sound familiar).

In the previous Charlotte discussion I covered their attempts at ‘new urbanism’ and how those efforts are impacting the form of suburban Charlotte. Rail transit is having an even more profound effect on how urban Charlotte is built and how it functions. How can Cincinnati learn from these practices, and what can we take out of Charlotte’s efforts to make our own better?

South End:

Completed in 2007, the nearly 10-mile light rail LYNX Blue Line has had a major impact on Uptown and South End Charlotte. All along the line you see new infill projects making Uptown a more vibrant and functional place. In the South End, a densely built residential neighborhood is forming in a complimentary way to the historic roots of the neighborhood.

The South End was built around the service of the Charlotte Trolley which operate from 1891 to 1938. A heritage trolley service is once again running today on the same tracks as the heavier-grade light rail. It is amazing to see the corridor of investment along the new LYNX Blue Line through the neighborhood.


TOD Along Blue Line, new 11-story apartment building, Blue Line looking Uptown from South End
(Click thumbnails for larger version)

Three to eleven story buildings are popping up all over the South End. There are lots of restaurants, clubs, bars, and shopping. Some (including me and my tour guide) go bar hopping along the light rail line. This was not only very fun, but safe and responsible as well.

It’s not just the scope and amount of development that’s impressive, but it is the quality. An urban Lowe’s has opened along the line with several other more typically suburban stores now taking to a more urban footprint. The residential buildings have street-level retail and are built to the street in a way that is transforming the neighborhood into a walkable, vibrant urban space.

Uptown:

Charlotte’s city center known as Uptown is a financial juggernaut with institutions like Wachovia, and Bank of America calling it their home. While the recent financial meltdown has hurt Charlotte, Uptown is still moving along at breakneck speeds.

The former convention center has been turned into a mixed use commercial entertainment complex (EpiCentre) that draws hoards of crowds on weekend nights. The arena is conveniently located along the light rail line that connects its patrons with Charlotte’s hotels and other attractions.

EpiCentre, Nix Burger & Brew, Harris Teeter grocery in 4th Ward Sub-Neighborhood
(Click thumbnails for larger version)

Uptown boasts two full-service grocery stores, a couple residential sub-neighborhoods, Charlotte’s largest employment center, and is the hub of the future Charlotte rail transit network. And like the South End, you can see the clustering of new investment along the light rail line. The existing success of Uptown is being leveraged by this new rail investment and you can see the spread outward from the core.

Streetcars:

The reach of the existing light rail line isn’t that great. As a result the functionality often mimics that of a streetcar through the center city area. The travel speeds are low and stations are frequent. This should be resolved with the opening of the new streetcar line that is being constructed as long-term light rail success depends upon car-competitive travel times and costs for its riders.

This will allow the circulator behaviors to occur on the streetcar, and free up the light rail line for faster more commuter-style transport. The eventual scope, of this streetcar line, is to connect the University Park area of west Charlotte with Eastland Mall in east Charlotte via Uptown. This won’t be completed for some time, but the initial phase will connect Uptown Charlotte with the medical district east of center city.

The current streetcar construction is being combined with an overall streetscape project that is completely redoing the street, its sidewalks and implementing the new tracks. Normal streetcar construction is much less intrusive as it only requires an 12-14 inch cut where the tracks are laid.

Ridership:

During both of my trips to Charlotte I have experienced high ridership levels on the Blue Line. Both trips did occur on weekends and were often filled with families and tourists, although daily travelers were present and made up about half of the total riders.

7th Street Station, Train approaching South End station, 7th Street Station with Reid’s Fine Foods

(Click thumbnails for larger version)

Some families were riding just to ride. Others were taking the light rail to events going on in Uptown and riding back south to their neighborhood. The trains were crowded and were standing room only which had me thinking they could probably add another car onto the train for increased capacity.

As of September 2008, the Blue Line was averaging 16,936 weekday trips. The number has the possibility of reaching an average of 18,000+ weekday trips for 2009. If this ridership average is met, the Blue Line will have reached its projected 2025 ridership levels an astounding 16 years ahead of schedule.

Conclusions:

Overall the impacts of rail transit in this Queen City were profound. The light rail line was not only generating a new wave of investment, but it was remaking Charlotte in a way many Midwestern cities could only dream.

The investments are bold and long-term. They are dense and are injecting tons of street life into a city and its neighborhoods once devastated by the same policies and programs that blasted through virtually every city.

I wonder how a city like Cincinnati plans to compete without also investing in rail transit? In this new age of social capital and human innovation, we must compete for the best talent and create a dynamic city environment that keeps them coming back. Cincinnati’s peer cities like Pittsburgh and St. Louis already have rail transit. Smaller, more rapidly growing cities, like Indianapolis and Charlotte are building rail transit. So where do we stand, where will we stand, or will we decide to accept the status quo and bet on the current economic trends reverting to the olden days when Cincinnati boomed?

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Development News Politics

Lessons from Charlotte – New Urbanism

A couple weekends ago I traveled to Charlotte, NC to visit a friend and learn a little more about a relatively young southern city that also considers itself to be the Queen. I took lots of photos and had a great time. Of my experiences, they can be roughly broken down into two main categories for discussion – New Urbanism and Rail Transit.

These two topics are of interest to me because they are areas in which I think Cincinnati can greatly improve. Aside from being a smaller city that hasn’t really experienced much growth to speak of until the past two decades, Charlotte has done a good job at implementing the components that are defining America’s newest and best cities.

In this article I will discuss a development known as Baxter Village. The neighborhood embodies the ‘New Urbanist‘ ideals that make for a traditional neighborhood design. Now we could debate how “new” these principles are, and just how these development rank in terms of being “urban.” My point is simple. If we’re going to build suburban communities, this kind of development is better than the standard we have grown accustomed to – especially in the Midwest.

Design influences behaviors:
The homes, in Baxter Village, are built on small lots with small setbacks. Instead of large backyards, the community boasts large common areas for children to play and families to enjoy. What this does is promote a greater sense of community and interaction that was quite evident during the time I spent there.


Click images for larger version

Children played soccer in the street, neighbors chatted with one another from sidewalk to porch, and strangers to the area were even engaged in conversation about the daily joys of dog ownership.

All of this was complimented by the readily available sidewalks that have become more of a rarity than a typical neighborhood feature in our present-day communities. The tree-lined streets provide a comfortable buffer between pedestrians and the slowly moving vehicular traffic, and the large front porches with direct connection to the front sidewalk encourage residents to come out into the open, rather than retreat into the depths of their home or backyard.

Execution:
With these types of developments two things often happen. 1) They become unreasonably priced for any middle-class homeowners. 2) They give off a Disney feeling of cleanliness and predictability.

Baxter Village was able, in my opinion, to avoid falling into the pit of homogeneity, but the prices still weren’t at the levels for most people to consider it affordable. This is unlikely to change until these high-quality developments become more wide-spread thus meeting the demand for such a product and reducing its cost.

Click images for larger version

The first problem was avoided through careful mixtures of architectural styles, a long-build out time, variety in home builders, and gradual maturation. If developed right, these neighborhoods can and will mature beautifully as they have all the staples of a fantastic neighborhood.

Conclusion:
In Cincinnati we have been building our communities in a “business friendly” fashion in fear of pushing away any potential investment in our admittedly slow-growth Midwestern city. What this has done is lowered the standard of development and forced Cincinnatians to settle for what works best for the developers bottom line, instead of what works best of our communities and our people.

Maybe higher growth rates will dictate higher demand and a better end product. Maybe our regional population doesn’t deserve such qualities? What I think is that our politicians, and our governing bodies should have the backbone to require such a product that is evident in our older neighborhoods that are thriving to this day. Forty years from now are we going to look back at the neighborhoods we’re building in the exurbs with the same pride and joy as the inner-city neighborhoods we are working so hard to preserve? Unfortunately, I would say no.

View all of my Baxter Village photos here
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Development News Politics

Planning for the complexities of the human spirit

A friend shared this link with me and it got the wheels turning in my head about something I find particularly interesting. Do we over-emphasize things in our society that should really be shaped by the people who use and occupy them instead of shaping the people who use them?

In an earlier entry I wrote about our emphasis on planning for the inanimate objects in our society (i.e. buildings and infrastructure) and leaving the living things to figure it out once everything else is in its place. In my mind this is a backwards way to plan for a society of people and living things.

An obvious example of this, to me, would be our modern day zoning codes. These well-intentioned codes were developed to help keep the public safe and healthy from the harms of the built environment. What it has also accomplished is an extreme segregation of uses and building types. This seems to be something that is counter-intuitive to the human mind and how people actually function with their surroundings.

Human beings don’t inherently look at communicating, interacting, dining, shopping, playing, working and living as being mutually exclusive. Often times these things blur together as you might play where you live, you might shop where you dine, you may work where you live, and you certainly communicate and interact with other people while you do all of these things. So it begs the question – why are we not planning our communities in such a way?

It is a bold complex proposition to plan in such a way as it attempts to plan for the limitless possibilities and extreme complexities of the human mind. It is a planning technique that would celebrate the very things that make humans so special and unique. And I believe that it is something that can be achieved through the great imagination and thoughtfulness of only the human mind.

Photo from Jayson Gomes – CincyImages

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News

A bid farewell to Dr. Nancy Zimpher

As I am completing the final year of my five-year program I feel compelled to write a little bit on my thoughts about the only University of Cincinnati President I’ve known. Dr. Nancy Zimpher came to UC shortly before I started my academic career there and a lot has changed since then.

The once “out of control” budget has been tamed and is on its way to be balanced. UC is no longer joked about as standing for Under Construction. Academics have improved across the board with higher enrollment standards, reformed programs, and increased achievement. The university is emerging as a major research institution as the amount of research funding continues to rise annually.

The University has embarked on its most ambitious fund-raising campaign ever, rivaling some of the most ambitious campaigns run anywhere. UC is no longer considered a one sport school as our baseball, volleyball, soccer, football, and basketball programs are all competing at the highest level in the Big East Conference.

More students are living on and around campus – shedding the long thought idea that UC is a commuter school. Dr. Zimpher helped lead the effort to freeze tuition at State universities, she has been a proponent for the proposed streetcar system, and she has worked tirelessly to make the Uptown neighborhoods surrounding the university better places to live, work, and play.

Dr. Zimpher pushed for a strategic academic plan that put students at the center of it all. UC|21 has done just that as more students are getting involved, letting their voices be heard, and shaping the way their university does business.

Dr. Zimpher has gone out of her way to make it known that academics come first, no matter what, when she is in charge. The Board of Trustees have some hard work ahead of them to fill the void she’ll leave behind, but thanks to her, UC is now on the map and should be a prime destination for another top-level talent like herself.

Thanks for everything you’ve done for our region’s largest employer, university and city. Thanks for making my five years at the University of Cincinnati great, and good luck with your new endeavor as Chancellor of the State University of New York.

Read Dr. Zimpher’s farewell letter to the UC Community here.

Photo Credit – UC Magazine

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News

Whose grass is greenest?

A recent study, by the Pew Research Center, revealed that nearly half of all Americans want to live elsewhere (there’s a shocker). In that survey the three most popular cities were Denver, Seattle, and San Diego. The three least popular were Detroit, Cleveland, and Cincinnati. The survey also showed that many ‘city dwellers’ were unhappy about their living conditions. So what does all this mean, or does it mean anything at all?

Well it’s natural to want something better for yourself and your family. It is also natural to think the grass is greener on the other side. The survey also showed that younger people are more drawn to cities, and that women are the more difficult draw for cities – reemphasizing the indicator species phenomenon with women as noted by William H. Whyte in The Social Life of Small Urban Spaces.

Cincinnati’s own, Brianne Fahey, says that she not only loves Cincinnati, but she loves the city.

Brianne Fahey lives in a city the survey says an overwhelming majority of Americans would prefer not to live in: Cincinnati. Like many other large Midwestern and Northeastern cities, Cincinnati ranks near the bottom on people’s lists of ideal spots.

For Fahey, 30, Cincinnati is truly home. She grew up in North College Hill, a suburb where her parents and friends still live, but bought a downtown condo after college. She gets by without a car in a city that has few mass transit options. “I like the self-sufficiency of the city,” she says. “It’s a good place to be in all stages of life.”

From USA Today 9/27/09

I think Cincinnati does have a lot to offer. I would also say that other Midwestern and Northeastern cities are the same way. We could sit here and talk about the survey’s methodology or psychological behaviors all day. In the end I think people will take what they want to take from the survey, and criticize what they want.

The most significant data there is though is reality. The Cincinnati metropolitan area is a growing region and the city itself is growing too. Public schools are improving as is public safety. And the urban core has more residents and families calling it home than its had in many, many decades. Brianne is certainly not alone even though her story may be silent.

Map from Pew Research