Oklahoma City About to Abandon Chance for Excellent Mass Transit System

No, this is not Urban Review Oklahoma City. But I do return to my hometown a few times a year and keep tabs on what is happening there. Besides, we can learn from looking at other city’s successes or, in this case, mistakes.

At right is the remains of a once great rail system serving central Oklahoma. Like most cities of any size, Oklahoma City had streetcars to serve urban transportation needs. Back in the day a number of municipalities dotted the countryside around OKC and these were served by the “Interurban” rail service.

Behind OKC’s Union Station are these twelve tracks. Yes, twelve. Three long platforms, like the one shown in the foreground, served six of the twelve lines. Passengers entered the Union Station and took underground tunnels beneath the tracks and then came up through stairways to get to their platform.

The platforms had long canopies protecting passengers from the sun and bad weather. It appears to have been a great system, capable of serving many passengers. These platforms and tracks will soon be gone.

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Saving Face in Seattle

What do you do when a beloved building is where you want to build a new 22-story high rise tower? Most developers and elected officials would assume you have to clear the existing site.

Saving a facade is not a new concept but when done well it still interests me. I think it is good to continually remind ourselves this is an option to completely razing an existing structure.

From the new architect’s website:

The new tower retains old walls facing each street but the corner element is new — a retail space. The windows in the old facade are also updated with metal canopies to help protect pedestrians from rain as they walk along the sidewalk. While not a pure restoration of the entire original envelope it is an acceptable compromise.

Architect Blaine Weber from the Puget Sound Business Journal:

The retention of the old facade as well as the use of massing to relate to the low-rise buildings adjacent to the site shows great skill. From the sidewalk you really don’t get the sense you are walking next to a 22-story tower — and that is a sign of a pedestrian friendly high rise.

– Steve

An Urban Walgreen’s in Suburbia

Yes, Walgreen’s has built a decent new store in an up to the sidewalk urban fashion in an otherwise suburban area. But don’t look for this in the St. Louis region. I’m in Seattle on a combination business trip and brief vacation. Yesterday we spotted this new Walgreen’s in an area of NW Seattle (map)

The first thing you can see is the typical Walgreen’s window where a true second floor should exist. But under that is a sign & entrance for a place that does nails. What gives?

Walgreen’s is known for seeking high-profile corner locations but they don’t necessarily want a pedestrian corner entrance. Instead they want a parking lot and adjacent entrance. This is a good compromise design.

Seattle has requirements to build more urban even in areas that in the past had been allowed to have typical suburban development — far setbacks behind a sea of parking. Seattle has realized people will walk if you make the path interesting and convenient.

So the street corner, at far left in this picture, has a smaller business but gives Walgreen’s the visibility they desire. The other end of the building relates well to both the sidewalk and their small, but adjacent, parking lot.

Behind the Walgreen’s is local grocery store QFC with a large parking lot. This new Walgreen’s gives a more urban feel to the corner that it previously lacked. Between the Walgreen’s and QFC parking lot is a narrow drive-thru lane to serve the pharmacy.

Also of note is the red bike rack. The placement near the entrance is excellent. I would have preferred an “inverted-u” type rack that allows the bike to be supported in two places. This wave type rack is sexier which is why it gets selected. This rack is designed to hold three bikes — the middle bike entering from the opposite side. Whomever specified this rack failed to understand that point as the user would have to trek their bike through the planting area to do so. As a result, this is a essentially two-bike rack. An inverted-u rack would also hold two bikes and would have been cheaper. In the space they have they could have done two inverted-u racks for a total of four spaces — probably for the same cost as this single rack that really only hold two. I’m glad to see racks becoming more common but more thought needs to go into their selection and placement.

Back to the Walgreen’s…

Why don’t we have such urban thinking in the St. Louis region?

Basically it boils down to elected officials that are either ignorant of what it takes to make a more urban and walkable community or too lazy/spineless to require developers to do something different than their auto centric sprawl prototypes. At the same time these elected officials are trying to deal issue of meeting air quality compliance and population loss. Solutions are at hand but it requires doing business differently.

I recently had a St. Louis Alderman tell me, as we were discussing developments, “if you knew all the information” I’d have a different view. The additional information was tidbits like the store in question only has two standard models which the alderman accepted at face value. The “if you were in my shoes” answers just don’t cut it. It is an easy way out. Finally the real sentiment came out that in the past we haven’t had developers lined up to do projects in the city. So a developer expresses an interest in a project so we accept whatever it is they want to build because that is their standard model.

The building anything you want attitude is not limited to officials in the city. Municipalities in St. Louis County are tripping over each other to give developers incentives in a fight for sales tax dollars that are regionally flat. Brilliant.

The buildings we are constructing today will be with us for at least 20 years. That alone is a sad statement as we should be building for much longer life spans. But even a short 20 more years of parking dominated development is too long. Our region will fall behind other regions that are actively embracing pedestrian-friendly designs. Our region needs to attract more people, hedge our bets against rising fuel costs and make real efforts to reduce auto use that leads to lower air quality.

We cannot continue to have elected officials that simply accept the developers first sales pitch. We can demand better in our community.

– Steve

Bringing Life to a Suburban Corner

This weekend I was reviewing pictures from previous trips to Seattle and ran across images of a project I spotted on a 2002 visit. I found it quite interesting at the time and think we could do well to employ such thinking on more than a few corners in our region.

This Tully’s Coffee location is located in suburban Seattle (map). From this view you can see how it conforms to the sidewalk which includes right turn lanes typical of suburban streets. But pedestrians do exist in the area.

From the main street you can see the building is not very large but is well detailed. It creates a sense of place at the corner of an intersection that needed it. Street trees and outdoor seating make this a pleasant place.

You’ll never guess what it is in front of.

Walgreen’s!

Yes, this small Tully’s Coffee location is in front of a typical corner Walgreen’s store. It includes entrances facing the corner as well as the Walgreen’s. I can envision people stopping at Walgreen’s to pick up something and deciding to run in for a latte. Conversely someone might stop for a coffee and realize they needed a few things they can pick up at Walgreen’s. It is a win-win for both retailers and the community.

I’m not a fan of Walgreen’s — they seem to procreate more quickly than rabbits. Throughout our region we have many stores identical to this one in Seattle. With so many existing and likely more on the way we should give serious consideration to such a concept.

It doesn’t have to be a coffeehouse at the corner. Could be a small restaurant like a Subway (or a locally owned equivalent). The idea is to begin placing buildings at the sidewalk line to make our cities more pedestrian friendly.

– Steve

Reviewing New York City

The view of Canal & Broadway from the 3rd floor fire escape was awesome. The hustle and bustle on a New York Saturday afternoon in China Town was in full swing. But I wasn’t on the 3rd floor of a building for the view — I was there as part of experiencing New York. The location with the great view was Sacred Tattoo where I was about to get tattoo #5. No silly t-shirt for me to remember the trip.

I wanted to share my thoughts and observations on NYC while they are still fresh in my mind. Although with over 1,000 photos I can easily go back and retrace my steps. I hold some strong beliefs about what makes a city great and specifically what we should be striving for. This trip to NYC as well as recent trips to Chicago and Oklahoma City have confirmed much of my thinking but challenged some notions on others.

While mostly in Manhattan I did spend time in Staten Island and Brooklyn. Most relate to Manhattan except where noted. These are in no particular order:

> It is the older 4-6 story buildings and old high rises that are most interesting. Some newer buildings are also interesting but most are just massive and sterile. Modern can be intimate but not at these scales.

> The Financial District is far more interesting seen from the air or the Staten Island Ferry than from the sidewalk.

> Trump Tower is truly garish inside and out. Acres of polished brass. But, the size and scale of the spaces and their relationships to each other was quite pleasant. The foyer is not some overwhelming scale but this is probably due to the price of real estate rather than sound aesthetic judgement on the part of Trump.

> NYC must be iPod capital of the world. I saw the white headphones everywhere. Some argue it is cutting down on social interaction on subways but I didn’t see many non-iPod strangers talking.

> I felt completely safe no matter where I was. Everyone was friendly. Passing people on residential sidewalks it was not uncommon to have natives say “hello” as we passed. We stopped to see people’s dogs as they were out walking them. Felt very neighborly.

> Public transportation is for everyone in NYC. But with neighborhoods so compact one resident I talked to said he hadn’t been on the subway in weeks — he simply walks where he is going. With a very complete subway system buses are a less visible than in St. Louis. Logically buses are more common where the subway doesn’t go (such as East-West along 125th Street).

> Yellow cabs and black Lincoln Town Cars are the most common vehicles on the road. Lots of both. Nearly saw one accident but it is amazing how they all speed around without getting into more collisions.

> Took a pedicab ride from Central Park to Trump Tower. Very fun. As gas prices rise I think we’ll see more and more of these efficient cabs throughout America. Seems like the pedicab drives and taxi drivers have some sort of mutual respect. At one point we were so close to a cab I could have reached out and touched it.

> Bicyclists were pretty common throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn. Not so much on Staten Island but they may have something to do with the hilly terrain. Seldom was a cyclist wearing a helmet. It was common to see cyclists riding the wrong way on the road. All the rules of the road that I am certified to teach were thrown out the window. Very seldom did I see a bike rack — parking meters, railings and anything secure was used to lock bikes. Most have massive chains that are hard to cut. With a 5th floor walk-up apartment you are likely to store your bike outside. Not a place for a pretty bike unless you can keep it indoors.

> The length of mid-town and uptown blocks in the East-West direction are way too long. This is compounded by the fact that most subways go North-South. I found myself trying to decide on which subway to take so that I could save a block or two in the East-West direction.

> Buildings, even in burroughs other than Manhattan, occupy nearly all of the lot. Very little yard or garden space. This is not all bad as parks are throughout the grid. It seems the combination of very little personal yard and small living spaces get people out onto the sidewalks and into the public parks. Could this be the key to a vibrant urban city — reduce living spaces and yards?

> I was amazed at the number of “projects” still in use in NYC including the Lower East Side, Harlem, and the Bronx. We walked through ‘Alphabet City’ on the Lower East Side. The sheer number of people kept the projects from seeming vacant but they certainly were low on life compared to the blocks around them. Jane Jacobs was so right.

> Street vendors were everywhere. Some were selling various foods and sodas while others offered their own original art. Many were targeting tourists with NYC merchandise. Regardless of what they sell they add life to the city.

> I love fire escapes. I must admit I was nervous out on one. I can’t imagine using it to get down multiple flights in an emergency as they have far too little railing for my comfort. I think they add a nice element to the fronts of buildings. The streetscapes would be too sterile without them.

> Window boxes and planters were everywhere. All shapes and sizes. The city felt lush and green in most places.

> The basement level apartments and restaurants are interesting. Shows how valuable the real estate really is.

> Restaurants are small and full most hours of the day and night. St. Louis places could never survive being so small because they depend upon large lunch and dinner crowds whereas in NYC they have a constant stream of customers. The number of restaurants with roll-out awnings on the front to create covered outdoor seating is quite high. I love roll out awnings compared to fixed awnings such as those on Blockbuster. A considerable number of restaurants also had opening windows and/or doors. Keep in mind they have much more severe winters than we do and get just as hot in the summer. If they can do it so can we.

> We saw a taping of The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Wednesday. We had to wait a good two hours on the sidewalk and another 45 minutes inside. The studio was much smaller than expected and is in one of the areas that is not the most attractive, Hell’s Kitchen.

> SoHo has become a big chain store stopping district. Still active with lots of people and great architecture but the stores are commonplace. I visited only one — The Apple Store.

I’m sure I have lots more on NYC but that is what comes to mind right now. While St. Louis will never be New York we can certainly apply some lessons of efficient public transportation, creating urban streetscapes and models for urban parks.

– Steve

[UPDATED 8/29/05; 8:30pm — added photo]