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Technorati Tags: Springfield Missouri, Urban and Regional Planning, urban design, urban development, Urban Planning

Technorati Tags: cycling, urban design, urban development, Urban Planning

Construction crews are finishing work on Park Central Square in downtown Springfield 20 days ahead of schedule. This is the culmination of a four-year effort to improve Springfield’s Public Square.

History
Originally positioned as the city center in 1838, The Square has been significantly reconfigured six times over the city’s history. The last major redesign occurred in 1972, when noted landscape firm Lawrence Halprin and Associates designed a modernist urban landscape, and The Square was renamed Park Central Square.

Over its 35 year life, the power of Halprin and Associates’ design was diminished due to deferred maintenance and numerous unfortunate “improvements.”

A Project Begins to Take Shape
BR&P was brought on to improve the square and make it a catalyst for a more vital downtown. BR&P’s initial designs, developed in collaboration with Project for Public Spaces, featured a number of significant changes to the design, each intended to increase functionality, livability and sense of place in the square, consistent with the directives of a client committee representing more than a dozen stakeholders.

A New Direction
Word spread of the impending changes to Park Central Square, and several local and national interest groups emerged in opposition to changing Halprin and Associates’ work. They nominated Park Central Square to the National Register of Historic Places, and because the project was to be funded with federal dollars, what was originally intended as a makeover, turned into a restoration.

BR&P’s efforts changed from redesigning to restoring and re-invigorating Halprin and Associates’ square — a trip to the Halprin archives in Philadelphia was a significant part of the research — and then making design changes, only when necessary and consistent with that intent.

What to Expect
Needs addressed in the project include:

• Accessibility
• Activity areas on the perimeter of the square
• Stabilized paving
• Supportive bedding for new trees (planted according to Halprin and Associates’ original plans)
• New lighting, jets and mechanical components in the fountain controlled by a state-of-the-art computer system
• Underground vault with controls for the fountain, sound and lighting systems to animate Park Central Square

Park Central Square takes a place in BR&P’s preservation and adaptive reuse portfolio, next to projects such as Boone County Courthouse, Historic Springfield City Hall, Springfield Brewing Company, and the Gillioz Theater.

More on the Square from Carbon Trace:

• Q & A with Tim Rosenbury
• First Friday on the Square

Technorati Tags: cycling, urban design, urban development, Urban Planning

Some advocates are willing to do almost anything to increase participation — including putting novices in danger.

There’s a “but”: It appears rather clear that the more people who ride bicycles in a given area the safer it is to ride a bicycle on the road (convincing novices that the riding in traffic is already safe requires education). A new study recently published in Environmental Practice reinforces the safety-in-numbers thinking and adds a bonus: More people on bicycles makes the traffic system safer for all road users.

There’s another “but”: It appears that bicycle lanes play a minor role in encouraging people to ride bicycles (hoo-ray for that). This new study suggests that narrow streets, a dense grid pattern, and traffic calming are the real keys in the American context (or, in the case of this study, the California context).

Today I want to discuss one of the findings: intersections per square mile. The study shows that safer, high-cycling cities have more intersections per square mile than do less-safe, low-cycling cities. Safe, high-cycling cities in the study averaged 114.2 intersections per square mile suggesting a dense grid pattern. The following graphic illustrates common street patterns. It’s easy to see why grids have more intersections and why grids would tend to calm traffic.

Now let’s take a look the square mile at the heart of downtown Springfield (defined by me as the area surrounding Park Central Square).

That’s a rough estimation using Google Maps. By my (very rough) count using this map, downtown Springfield has 127 intersections in this square mile. Further, the speed limit is 20 mph on most of the roads you see there (exceptions include Grant, Jefferson, Kimbrough, Benton, and Chestnut Expressway).

The four safest cities in the study share something else with Springfield, but the study does not mention it — and I think it is important: The safest cities are all home to universities — Berkeley, Chico, Davis, and Palo Alto. On this Springfield map, MSU is just off the southeast corner, and OTC and Drury intersect the map to the north and northeast.

I’m only discussing grid density now. But this begs the question: Why, then, has Springfield not achieved the kind of bicycling numbers as, say, Davis, California? We have active advocacy (STAR Team) and a cooperative (even enlightened) public works department and police force. We have encouragement and education programming. While facilities such as bicycle lanes play a minor role according to the study, we have some of those, too. That square mile area has several bicycle lanes plus a growing greenway.

I think one important reason we’re not seeing the kinds of bicycling numbers as those California cities is because there are damned few employers of the kind that attract the creative class (notice the income data in the study). Yes, we have entertainment — mostly at night. Yes, we have a growing number of lofts. Yes, MSU is moving into more and more downtown buildings (e.g. Park Central Square Office Building, Jordan Valley Innovation Center, Brick City). Yes, there are banks and churches and stores and restaurants and other small businesses. But there are precious few large employers who employ highly-skilled, creative people of a kind that MSU, Drury, and OTC attempt to produce.

In short, the reasons to bicycle downtown right now are largely confined to after business hours (re: my first post today).

Our urban challenge (one of many): Encourage more employers of the creative class to move downtown. MSU’s movement into downtown is a great start. Now others must follow. Tax breaks help bring employers. Can we, however, save these breaks for employers that bring high-wage creative jobs to town instead of employers who bring low-wage, low-benefit jobs to town.

Our Urban Challenge Series:

• First in a Series
• Getting Started
• Green Density
• Networks
• Barriers
• Free Parking
• The Good Life
• Cost of Living
• Build It First
• Make It Awesome
• The Euro Thing
• Middle of Nowhere
• Young Professionals
• The Big Disconnect
• Where to Live

Technorati Tags: bicycle advocacy, bicycle commuting, bicycle culture, bicycle infrastructure, bicycle politics, bicycle safety, cycling, pedestrian safety, Springfield Missouri, traffic design, transportation, Transportation Planning, urban design, urban development, Urban Planning

• Americans are three times more likely to say that the quality of life in their communities has gotten worse (35%) rather than better (12%) in the last three years. In 2004, the public was more optimistic: 25%, gotten better; 23%, gotten worse; 52%, stayed the same.
• When selecting a community, nearly half of the public (47%) would prefer to live in a city (19%) or a suburban neighborhood with a mix of houses, shops, and businesses (28%). Another four in ten (40%) would prefer a rural area (22%) or a small town (18%). Only one in ten (12%) say they would prefer a suburban neighborhood with houses only.
• After hearing detailed descriptions of two different types of communities, 56% of Americans select the smart growth community and 43% select the sprawl community. Smart growth choosers do so largely because of the convenience of being within walking distance to shops and restaurants (60%). Those who prefer the sprawl community are motivated mostly by desire to live in single-family homes on larger lots (70%).
• In a forced choice question, being within walking distance of amenities is preferred by a majority of Americans. Nearly six in ten adults (58%) would prefer to live in a neighborhood with a mix of houses and stores and other businesses within an easy walk. Four in ten (40%) select a community with housing only, where residents need to drive to get to businesses.
• Privacy from neighbors is the top consideration tested for Americans in deciding where to live (45%, very important; 42%, somewhat). Other top priorities include, high quality public schools (44%; 31%), commute time (36%; 42%), and sidewalks and places to walk (31%; 46%).
• Living in a single-family, detached home is important to most Americans. Eight in ten (80%) would prefer to live in single-family, detached houses over other types of housing such as townhouses, condominiums, or apartments.
• While majorities of Americans prioritize space and privacy, a lengthy commute can sway them to consider smaller houses and lots. Six in ten (59%) would choose a smaller house and lot if it meant a commute time of 20 minutes or less. Four in ten (39%) would stick with the larger houses even if their commute was 40 minutes or longer.
• Two-thirds (66% very or somewhat important) see being within an easy walk of places in their community as an important factor in deciding where to live. Specifically, being within an easy walk of a grocery store (75%), pharmacy (65%), hospital (61%), and restaurants (60%) is important to at least six in ten Americans.
• Americans see improving existing communities (57%) and building new developments within existing communities (32%) as much higher priorities than building new developments in the countryside (7%).
• The public’s attitudes toward traffic solutions have remained consistent over the last seven years. Improving public transportation is viewed as the best answer to traffic congestion by half of the country (50%). Three in ten (30%) prefer building communities where fewer people need to drive long distances to work and shop. Far fewer want to see more roads (18%).
• Those on both ends of the socio-economic scale tend to prefer smart growth communities while those in the middle are more drawn to sprawl-type communities.

There are many more bullet points in the executive summary. Some of them challenge what I am about to say. Be that as it may, the points I’ve listed above tell me that an idea that’s cooking in Springfield now is a good one.

Check out the Pocket Neighborhood for the Springfield Urban Core page on Facebook.

The idea is a to create a small, dense neighborhood of small (1,000 to 1,200 sq. ft.), energy-efficient homes (solar and geo-thermal) within an easy walk/bicycle ride of downtown, MSU, OTC, and Drury University. Unlike typical subdivisions, the homes would face a central commons and cars would be kept to the rear.

I’ve been thinking about doing the downtown loft thing. But this idea fascinates me even more. Some of the reasons are right there in the stats I quoted. Yes, I want walkable. Yes, I want dense. Yes, I want an easy, short, car-free commute. Yes, I want public transportation. But also yes, I still like the idea of having a single-family home. My desire to leave the one I’m living in has far more to so with my dislike of yard work and cutting grass than it does with the idea of living in a free-standing house.

So the pocket neighborhood offers me a potential to get everything I want. Yard care? The commons care should be handled by a service. I still get to sit on my porch and enjoy it rather than working on it.

This post, being a part of my Urban Challenges series, isn’t supposed to be about me. But I’m calling this to your attention in the context of this series because since the introduction of this idea a few short weeks ago, the FB group participants have identified a property, begun an initial plan, and approached the city about zoning and other planning issues.

So the ball is rolling on an interesting new urbanist experiment.

The desire to live on a large lot far from town remains strong in this area. It is a lifestyle heavily associated with the American Dream and a certain view of personal freedom. The Realtor study also associates it with a particular political point of view known to dominate this corner of Missouri. Projections by the Ozarks Transportation Organization (see slides 18-30) indicate that, unless something changes, the suburban communities and exurban towns around Springfield will double in size by 2030. Further, people will continue to push into the hinterlands by building more suburbs on rural greenfields.

It’s possible, however, that our current economic problems have already had a dampening effect on those projections. How long will taxpayers continue to be willing subsidize the roads and other infrastructure necessary to maintain wealthy people on large lots far from town?

Also check out:

Smart Growth & Conventional Suburban Development: Which Costs More?

Central City and Suburban Development: Who Benefits and Who Pays?

The Growth Ponzi Scheme, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Our Urban Challenge Series:

• First in a Series
• Getting Started
• Green Density
• Networks
• Barriers
• Free Parking
• The Good Life
• Cost of Living
• Build It First
• Make It Awesome
• The Euro Thing
• Middle of Nowhere
• Young Professionals
• The Big Disconnect

Technorati Tags: Springfield Missouri, sustainability, Urban and Regional Planning, urban design, urban development, Urban Planning