Commenter Defends Washington Ave Streetscape Design

One of the beautiful things about the internet is all the information that can be found, including old posts on this site. Today someone found a post I did over a year ago regarding the Washington Avenue streetscape between Tucker (12th) and 9th Street. My post was relatively short and focused mostly on the poor choice of bike racks. But here is what “Daisy” had to say:

I would like to remind a few particular people of what Washington Street used to look like. I have been working in and around the area for about the past 15 years now. I remember how the building rubble was all over the sidewalks and the sidewalks were uneven and broken. Mostly vacant buildings. No such thing as a bench to sit on, much less a place to lock your bike. You were constantly besieged by vagrants plying for money.

Okay, I’m in full agreement so far. Buildings were vacant, sidewalks were uneven and no benches or bike racks were in sight. For the record, we still have beggars seeking money.

She continues:

Broken glass that littered the road and the side walk made it mostly perilous to travel by any wheeled vehicle. Trees? Not a chance. Flower pots, no way. Trash cans? are you kidding me? The sidewalk and road were filled with litter. The stoplights were falling down. Whine if it makes you feel better, but hopefully people that are planning on visiting this area aren’t as disturbed by your opinions as they would have been had Washington Street been left the way it was.

The “it is better than it was” defense for bad planning always cracks me up. Of course it is better than it was, I should hope so after spending millions of tax dollars to improve the area! Do we, as citizens, not have the right to question the logic behind how our money is spent?

But, it gets worse:

BTW – did it ever occur to you that they used a bike rack that is versitile enough to be used by all the locks available. I personally know that the designers for this project worked diligently from all angles, for a very long time, verified all products with the available subsurfaces that they had to work with, and checked out the best solutions with what was available. A huge number of people were involved in these decisions, not just one designer.

So the defense of these inappropriate bike racks is that many people, not just one, make the wrong decision? And, for the record, a number of bike racks can be used with various locks. The simple inverted-U racks further west in the garish section of Washington Ave do the job better than any other rack design. Not only can you use multiple lock design but you can easily lock both wheels to the rack, if desired, and know the bike is supported in two places so it won’t fall over.

And “Daisy” concludes with the obligatory name calling:

Are you even aware of the vaults and tunnels below the surface of the road that they were dealing with? I guess being a couch designer is always the best way to point out someone elses faults, as long as you get them straight. Hey, maybe its another couch designer like you that continues to rip out the plantings and tear up the trees… Some people are just never happy.

Well, yes, I am aware of the vaults & tunnels downtown. I also know that most do not extend out to the curb line because if they did the trees would not have been able to be planted along the street. Tree roots, in my experience, consume more subsoil than bolts for a bike rack.

I love the “couch designer” comment. Great defense. The many designers made poor choices and when critiqued on functionality one attempts to belittle the reviewer. Sorry, but if you cannot handle constructive criticism then you should not be in the design business. I speak from experience since I also do double duty as a designer in addition to being a REALTOR®. The facts remain unchanged from a year ago: the relationship between the benches, bike racks and tress is horribly close. The bike racks require placing the bikes perpendicular to the curb and make access difficult. A simple inverted-U rack, like those used just down the street, would have been easier to use, less costly and would have had similar installation requirements. Product selection and placement was off in these blocks and no amount of name calling is going to change that.

This brings us to the issue of the planters. Uh, no, I not the kind to rip out plantings. But the logic behind the planters is a bit silly. Street trees should have been sufficient greenery for these blocks but someone thought they should have more so lots of money was spent on planters and and an irrigation system. I agree that if you are going to have planters you need to have irrigation but in the long run these will simply not be maintained by the city. The money spent on the planters and irrigation should have been spent on buying larger street trees.

And we have the “some people are just never happy” ending which is presumably an attempt reduce further public discourse of design matters. I guess if I were part of the design team responsible I’d not want anyone with a critical eye commenting either.

– Steve