Reno Park Update 091226
Just because I love making this page load slowly – and because I can’t help but post anything I crank out of my computer, this is a map of pure pedestrian activity, I’ve shown here. It’s a rather aesthetic image, I think. Below the fold is the same image against all pedestrian spaces, to make it clear where people actually are.
Reno Park Update 091213A
Okay, so in the last post, I mentioned that density seemed to form around destinations and where zoning permitted it. So, it’s worth looking at the transit-accessibility of each of the different localities. Obviously, transit planning, zoning, economics, architectural form and residents all affect each other as a town grows, but mapping is the process eliminating information to make some pattern legible.So the relation to transit accessibility can offer insights into what makes each place work.
I think you can see that only schools really form places where there is very limited transportation. Otherwise, it’s a significant part of making any location successful. Take a look at the same pattern with the street activity.
Reno Park Update 091207
Before getting to a relatively objective judgement of where neighborhoods are centered, it’s worth drawing out where the commercial spaces are. We know that street retail is a big draw for getting people onto the streets. Whether this is materialistic or not, shops and restaurants do get people out of their homes and onto the streets if they are oriented toward sidewalks. Even when there aren’t that many people on the sidewalks or in stores, the rhythm of the buildings and the people watching from within the buildings enliven and secure neighborhoods. With the big awning signs, stores often also engage drivers and people on the far side of a street, adding another layer to the community structure. So, take a look at that here, with enlivened sidewalks in red, and other enlivened spaces in a paler shade.
It’s also a defining characteristic of an area’s architecture and culture. Looking at this area, again, you can see nodes and corridors arising from the shapes, not consistent, and lacking in almost any east-west traffic. It also reminds you that the vast majority of the area is housing only, even many of the apartment buildings.
Reno Park Update 091028
In the last two updates, I showed that the disconnect between physical and social boundaries complicates any analysis of the spatial architecture of the Tenleytown-Tobago area. Of course, it’s worth looking at the vehicular perception of space. Read More
Reno Park Update 091021
I wrote in the last update that any analysis of the spatial relationships of a suburban-style city needs to consider the legal rules and social sentiments that coexist with physical boundaries. Of course the laws vary based on your “mode” of travel, with pedestrians getting a bit of leeway in terms of “travel.”
But let’s do pedestrians. How do they interact with space? Read More
Reno Park Update 091005B
So what is the relationship between zoning and buildings? (Again colors are off!)
Introducing the boozy walkabout
I want to talk about my favorite way to explore and study a city. Let me be upfront with you. All I’m really going to say in this post is “get drunk and walk around.”More specifically, get together a group of friends, conceal-carry a tasty alcoholic drink, and start walking down the street. In the dark and with diminished inhibitions, a cadre of walkers can become closer to the city than at any other time. When empty and dim, even the canyons of Midtown can seem intimate, as the view from a mountain can be both accessible and impossibly vast. Add friends and a moderate amount of booze, and it becomes a kind of private party on the move, with guests arriving as the group passes them.
Now, the best way to analyze a city is simply to walk around in it; just to see, in an uncritical way, the functioning of an urban environment. This kind of study is called a “transect,” which is not exactly Duany and Plater-Zyberk’s Transect zoning system, but it is the underlying idea. Taken from ecology, a transect is an activity where the participants examine conditions along an unbroken line, basically creating a section of a lake, or a rainforest, or a city. The technique has shown success because it enables a holistic understanding of a city, exploring the weave of the so-called urban fabric.
Best, but not the most fun. There are two problems with an academic transect: It is, um, academic. Walking around to observe human-building interaction has consistently proven to be one of the least enticing activities to my friends. On a more personal level, expectations of what sort of urban environments work can interfere with observation. Reason and language get in the way of simple experience. Disarming guarded faculties is critical to being fair and free – and friends are a great remedy for crotchety ol’ critics.
Preferrred, 3-step alternative.
The solution, then, is to turn the transect into a social event. Everyone I know who’s tried a boozy walkabout has had a good time – with repeat customers. Who needs an outdoor café to get that feeling of urbane place? Grabbing a bottle of Coke and mixing in some bourbon not only saves you a stack of cash, it also lets you see more of the city. When the conversation fades you can just take a look around at the beauty and the oddities that surround you, and likewise you can tune it out with conversation.
Here’s a map of some recent walkabouts.
View Boozy Walkbouts in a larger map
The evening is the best time for this kind of fun. Evening into night, where you begin in the remnants of the workday, pass by diners on the street, and then you hit peak inebriation at the same time as nightlife gets ebullient, before finally reemerging into consciousness in the cool and sleepy streets. In this time, you see age groups come and go in turn, old, young, and youthful. Before heading home, you and your friends have explored a little bit of the city, learned a little bit, but it won’t feel like an expedition.
There are no books, no notes, and no theories weighing you down. You feel the city, both its living and sturdy parts, and you share these feelings with others. There’s community from the common experience. Connections grow, even between those in the group and those who aren’t.
So visit the city, and bring your own party.
Reno Park Update 090804A
I’m still working on the buildings and pedestrian maps, but I took a break to chart out the public transportation resources. I’ve included all public transportation resources, but not AU shuttles or the W45/47. Those aren’t accessible to 90% of potential park users, so I’m not interested. So, to start, here’s a route map. Clearly, it gets kind of insane around Tenleytown.
Note: These drawings are in an Adobe CMYK color space, so may look wacky on some computers.
So that’s a good beginning. These are obvious facts. Under the fold is an analysis of the walksheds for each stop, station, and line. Read More
North of Tilden: Developments in development
Tenleytown: The armpit of the area, a former bank parking at 4501 Wisconsin Ave, has sprouted scaffolding. Developed by the Pedas Family, the site will become a one-story, 3,677sf retail site, although the developer has not listed a client. The Pedases are better known for their empire based around the Inner Circle cinema, but also for Circle Parking and Circle Management. Physically, their most distinctive building is the Michael Graves-designed International Finance Corporation building at Washington Circle. Always a good improvement to see an empty lot get filled.
Mmmmm... postmodernism.
Tenleytown: The Ward 3 Aquatic Center, or the Wilson Pool, as everyone will call it, will have a formal opening, complete with Fenty, on Monday, August Third, at 10:30 AM. The Hughes group have put together an inoffensive structure, but it supposedly boasts the capability for daylighting, natural ventilation, and water-loss mitigation, earning it a LEED Silver certification. The pool has been desperately needed since the shoddily built predecessor started falling apart at a more rapid rate in 2003.
Hawthorne, Palisades, Green Acres?: Opposition to sidewalks continues in the hinterlands of DC, where DDOT has been adding the badly needed infrastructure. This time, it’s over in Palisades, on Chain Bridge Road and University Terrace. Roger Lewis and Ward 3 Council member Mary Cheh went on the Kojo Nnamdi show. Lewis shared some interesting history, but it was Cheh that laid down the law, insisting on sidewalks, but also demanding DDOT involve community members more. The two both agreed that the rational need for a network of sidewalks was a no-brainer. Callers disagreed, for some reason, mostly that “they’re not used” and they’ll “ruin the character of the neighborhood.” The panelists offered reasonable responses to the entitled views of opponents.
However, aside from the Cheh-Lewis lovefest, the two missed some important points, such as the dubious wisdom of low-density, limited-network streets in the middle of the city. One of the callers declared that residing in the area seemed like living in the country, but near the city. That’s just swell, but neither addressed whether having such low density a mere 4 miles from the center of town was a good idea. Also, Nnamdi and Lewis both guiltily admitted to driving on University Terrace routinely. Listen to the conversation, it’s worth some down time.
Russia still outrageously dangerous
Today, checking up on the general doings of Russia, I came across three interesting articles about very different automobile collisions. Russia, I just learned, is the worst country in terms of per capita automobile fatalities. This situation has some historical roots in Stalinist city planning that called for large highways with few pedestrian crosswalks, but automobile fatalities weren’t really a problem when only 2% of the country could own a car. Now, when there are something like 2.5 million drivers in Moscow (still, only 16% of inhabitants), the roads get clogged, noisy, and deadly. According to the article, there were 236 fatalities per million Russians, nearly twice the United States’ 136 deaths per million. Calculating the death rate based on automobile use, 900 motorists die per year per million automobiles or motorcycles on the road in the Russian Federation. The United States isn’t even close.The term many people seem to use to describe contemporary Russia is dikaya, meaning “wild,” as in The Wild West. Dikiy kapitalizm, dikie nochi, dikie voditeli. Russian drivers are notoriously bad, impatient, and unprepared. But it’s not just lax licensing and bad drivers, the roads themselves are terrible, most designed for puttery small cars like the Lada and if not, then just poorly maintained. Moreover, the speed limit on all streets within Moscow is 60kph, around 38mph, but in reality, nobody drives the limit.
The government has enabled the newfound love for motorcars, looking to the Interstate Highway System for inspiration. In Moscow alone, the Federal Government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars to expand the road network, including building a twelve lane freeway on the already massive Leningradsky Prospekt, right up to the center of the city, and putting tunnels under multiple plazas on Tverskaya Street. I lived off Leningradsky Prospekt for a while, near its intersection with the Third Ring road, and crossing either road was a slow and onerous process that sometimes required me to use graffitti-covered and patently unsafe pedestrian overpasses. And incidentally, one part of the Third Ring is a leaky tunnel that causes cars, moving at freeway speeds, to aquaplane in the summer and slide on black ice in the winter, resulting in a spectacularly morbid video and many severe injuries.
The second article, a real gut punch, is one that has become familiar to pro-pedestrian bloggers. On may 13th, a driver named Roman Zhirov killed a visibly pregnant woman named Yelena Shumm, who was walking in a crosswalk with the right signal. Her death is a tragedy in itself, but not quite the horrible act of malfeasance that it has since become. Soon afterward, the police got the license place of the car and located the owner of the blue Forester seen speeding away from the scene, but have yet to file charges. You see, Mr. Zhirov is a member of the Internal Affairs Division of the police.
The State Prosecutor’s office has apparently begun some investigation into that unit, but so far, nothing. Unsurprisingly, the story has been picked up by the news media in Moscow, thanks in part to the murdered woman’s husband, Alexei, who has started a very depressing livejournal. Take a look at the google translation if you don’t speak Russian.
I can’t much end on such a miserable note, but I can’t find much related to счастливое водительство that is very happy at all. Still, at least only broken bones resulted from the high profile collision between a jaywalker and a motorcycling rock star that happened two days ago. That’s still not great, but at least the reporters in those blog posts use the active voice to describe the motorists’ actions.