Jul

28

A trip down memory lane: neighborhood planning in Southeast Seattle

Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

The Rainier Valley Post has a great editorial today.  Gathering zoning, transportation policy history, World’s Fairs and Kunstler in one place is enough to get Great City’s heart racing!

Othello N’hood Planning in a Broader Historical Context (OP-ED)

July 20, 2010

in Development,Opinion,Transportation

By Mona Lee

I recently read that the dream of the American suburb was born at the New York world’s fair in 1939.  1939 was coincidentally  the year I was born too.

At the heart of the fair exhibit entitled “Futurama” was a huge scale model that showed what American cities and towns might look like with cars zipping down wide highways, stand alone houses with spacious yards and attached garages.  So while street cars were still stopping in Columbia city with people getting on and off to do their shopping in stores along the sidewalk, the nation’s collective consciousness began zoning wide arterials like Martin Luther King Way, then called Empire Way, for the purpose of moving automobiles out into the suburbs.  The result was the C1  (commercial one story) pattern of zoning with big box stores, commercial strips, and acres upon acres of parking.

So throughout my life time, the American suburbs spread out from the cities taking over the land.  No questions asked.  We built what I call “car world.”  But in the mid 1990’s the architectural critic, James Howard Kunstler published an article in the Atlantic Monthly that reflected an emerging collective awareness that maybe this all had been a mistake.  This emerging consciousness was called “new urbanism.” More…

Jul

28

Jarrett Walker on Transit and Traffic Congestion

Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

From the Human Transit blog here are some interesting ideas from Jarrett Walker.  If you’d like to hear more, Jarrett will be speaking at GGLO Thursday evening, July 29th,  from 5:00 pm to 7:00 pm.  If you’re still going strong, after Jarrett’s talk there will be a Streets for All Seattle kick off party at Nectar Lounge, 412 North 36th Street in Fremont from 7:00 pm to late.

Now and then, someone mentions that a particular transit project did not reduce traffic congestion, as though that was evidence of failure.  Years ago, politicians and transit agencies would sometimes say that a transit project would reduce congestion, though most are now smart enough not to make that claim.

To my knowledge, and correct me if I’m wrong, no transit project or service has ever been the clear direct cause of a substantial drop in traffic congestion.  So claiming that a project you favor will reduce congestion is unwise; the data just don’t support that claim.

To my knowledge, and again correct me if I’m wrong, there are exactly three ways for a city to reduce its traffic congestion measurably, quickly, and in a lasting way.  (Widening roads is not one of these ways, because its benefit to traffic congestion is temporary unless new development in the road’s catchment is completely and permanently banned.)  More…

Jul

27

Gaps in Our Midst

Filed Under Uncategorized | Leave a Comment

The Hortem Obtainium

Great City friend and urban eco-pundit Roger Valdez can be credited for highlighting what he calls “the sustainability gap.” It is the chasm between policy outcomes that fail to reflect an understanding of the perilous path of human civilization is on – especially when said policies are championed by the most ardent political rhetoricians among us.

Crosscut’s David Brewster today laments a different kind of gap – one that is more geographic, although still a result of policy, to be sure. In a post called “Seattle’s Botanical Gap,” Brewster notes the core of our city is “hardened,” reflecting our forefathers’ preoccupation with commerce over livability. The legacy is a concrete jungle, but the opportunistic entrepreneurs who founded Seattle would likely see no problem with that.

In the Northwest’s economic and cultural center a “botanical gap” between modern, urban-livability principles and the reality of the built environment is of our own making, but it is our charge to fill it, nonetheless.  It is a charge we at Great City pursue with zeal.

Seattle’s botanical gap

By David Brewster

Botanical gardens, one reads in The New York Times, are having an identity crisis. Flower shows, horticultural lectures, and garden-club patrons are no longer able to pay the bills. So the gardens are putting on cooking demonstrations, building model green structures, and even inviting in dogs ($2 per canine). Would that Seattle had such a problem.

As it happens, my wife and I were recently at the Denver Botanic Gardens, a very beautiful, tremendously varied facility on Denver’s Capitol Hill. They filled us with envy for such a facility, particularly in Seattle, which has one of the great gardening climates of the world. The extra draw at Denver, one of the country’s largest botanic gardens, was a show of a score of major Henry Moore sculptures, gorgeously sited amid pools, on hillocks, and among the blooms.

Such facilities are the legacies of earlier benefactors, the kinds of worthies who normally contributed and laid out major downtown parks. The Denver gardens used to be closer to downtown, but they suffered from constrained space and some vandalism before moving into a handsome residential district. Denver has the nation’s best public support for arts and “scientific institutions” such as the botanical gardens, so these facilities are flourishing. (The mechanism is a tenth of a cent of sales tax spread over seven counties, raising $40 million a year in public support.) More…

Jul

26

Streets for All Foodies

Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Courtesy of The New York Public Library, via Flickr

Last month, we posted an open letter to Seattle’s City Council in support of more progressive street food policy.  We believe active, pedestrian-friendly streets are essential to a safe and vital city so we published a detailed endorsement of the proposed mobile food vending ordinance.

In the meantime, CHS canvassed Broadway and has published some great reporting on the thoughts of restaurateurs in the area and today, Slog’s Riya Bhattacharjee weighs in with some international perspective.

We think its a healthy debate on a meaty topic and we hope the City Council is cooking up something wonderful!

More to Eat on the Street

Posted by Riya Bhattacharjee on Mon, Jul 26, 2010

If you think Seattle’s street food scene isn’t as cool as New York’s or Portland’s, you’re not alone. Folks at the City of Seattle agree. In fact the Seattle Department of Planning and Development is trying (.pdf) to roll out more food vendors on the city’s sidewalks and parks with the consent of the City Council. The Downtown District Council is hosting a public workshop at City Hall today at 5:00 p.m. to talk about a proposed street-food initiative. So if you want to quip about how much you love Marination Mobile, Maximus Minimus ,or the taco truck in your hood, this is your chance.

Currently food trucks are only allowed to park on private property (only hot dogs, coffee, and pop corn can be heated and served on the sidewalk), in Seattle, which results in turf wars and perhaps even haggling for space with a property owner. DPD planner Gary Johnson—who totally gets it—told me that he wants to change Seattle’s street food system to Portland’s. Yes! Finally someone who understands the joy of having some 580 cheap and tasty licensed food trucks mobilized all over the city. Council Member Sally Clark also gets it. “We are trying to figure out what are the rules that keep food carts from being really successful,” says Clark, a self-confessed street food fan. Except for the hot dog carts, Seattle doesn’t have food vendors selling smoothies, sandwiches, and fresh food, Clark says, because of existing health code rules. The Health Department is considering lifting the restrictions to allow “assembly of pre-cooked ingredients.” She adds, “The new codes will provide start up business opportunities and turn sidewalks into more interesting places. The flip side is litter and less room for wheelchairs.” More…

Jul

26

Cycletracks Brownbag Videos

Filed Under Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Thanks again to Phil Miller of SvR Design Company and Seleta Reynolds of Fehr + Peers for a fascinating brownbag last Thursday at GGLO. Though a little late getting the video camera out, our intrepid videographer has uploaded the majority of the brownbag. Enjoy, and as soon as we have a copy of the Powerpoint, we’ll be sure to add that as well.

Next Page →