Part 2 - Streets Aren't Smart - People Are...

Last week I posted about Doyle Conner Blvd. essentially an extension of East and West Park Avenue that originates in Downtown Tallahassee. This week we take the Way Back Machine and take a look at what might have been:

Hindsight is 20/20

East and West Park Ave. Downtown Tallahassee, FL

East and West Park Avenue had its beginnings in the heart of Tallahassee. This uniquely beautiful road lived up to it’s name. It was and is an urban street with a wide boulevard shaded by stately Live Oaks with Spanish Moss swaying in the breeze.  Six blocks of beauty and the park setting is perfect for festivals and markets.

The hindsight question is; what happened? Why only six blocks?

Someone had vision when they platted those six blocks of Park Avenue. A shaded street a community gathering place a welcome respite from the humidity that hangs over the city in the summer (well in the spring and fall too, its Florida).

Why not create a park like boulevard that runs east and west from the city center to… Well a logical terminus and/or wherever the city ends? 

In a way, that is what the current design did. Doyle Conner has a landscaped boulevard and a long right hand curve connects this road to Apalachee Parkway and a traffic signal. As you sit at this signal you are facing south toward a large greenfield.

Future development???

Future road extension??? 

But, at this point the road would no longer be an east/west corridor.

Hindsight lets us imagine a shaded roadway where Live Oak give way to Magnolia, then to Bald Cypress as the road crosses waterways; next some Cherry Laural mixed with other Oak and Red Bud and even Sycamore (a little messy, but very shady). I am not an arborist or L.A. I just looked these up at: http://www.floridagardener.com/misc/shade.htm

Now consider this pattern as an alternative to Conner Blvd. Is the prison still there? Yes. It is not within the power of this blog to prevent people from being bad. So we work with it. Does it have to be as it is? Not in a hindsight scenario. 

In hindsight Park Avenue would have a logical termination at Lake Lafayette.

It would be a boulevard, but not one that Mario Andretti and high school students love to drive fast on. Instead it would become the focal point for accessing Tom Brown Park and the regional park facilities that exist within. A couple traffic circles can be used to add interest and visual cues to the roadway. A series of collector streets, one being named Conner Doyle, would link major land use areas between Park Avenue and Aplalachee Parkway. The result is blocks of land that can be developed with street orientation (eyes on the street) school buildings that are integrated into the residential areas, opportunities for shared use athletic fields between the park and the schools and traffic that is calm, relaxed and enjoying the ride.

The yellow lines reflect a variation on the hindsight scenario where the road bends a bit more but at the same time the boulevard widens creating the opportunity to mimic the downtown Park Ave design as it enters Tom Brown Park.

Oh, see the red star? If hind sight is 20/20 foresight has to be 50/50 right? So why not think out another 50 years and link a commuter rail station into the park and neighborhood development? The collector street that links the terminus of Park Avenue to Apalachee Parkway might incorporate higher density residential development (maybe multi-story brownstones?) and some neighborhood service commercial.

That is my hindsight vision. Park Avenue East, a boulevard starting at Adams Street in the center of downtown Tallahassee and continuing east to as a shaded park like setting until it terminates at Virgil Road on the outer edge of the city. Along the way this boulevard establishes a pattern of land development that protects natural habitats, enhances regional park access and integrates schools, neighborhoods and neighborhood services into a workable, walk-able community.

Another thing, think about how easy it would be to provide bus service for employees at the State Agricultural facility. Think about how the schools could have been designed into the neighborhoods. Maybe the big pedestrian bridge would not be needed? Think about other amenities that could have been included to serve the residents and part visitors. By creating development blocks, bringing buildings closer to the street and designing for transit we can create safer neighborhoods and reduce the amount of travel we do in our automobiles.

Next Week, I begin looking at what might be done…

Streets Aren't Smart.... People Are... A Short Series on Being Visionary

Part 1. A Brief Planning Assessment of an Urban Corridor

Introduction

As we have built our cities we find that sometimes we get things right and sometimes we don’t. And, sometimes we can’t even agree on what we got right… We aren’t perfect. So, lets talk about an urban corridor. For brevity I will call this corridor Sometimes the shortest distance between two points isn’t a straight line. This corridor happens to be located in Tallahassee FL and is a long curving street with a 40 mile per hour speed limit connecting Capital Circle NE to Apalachee Parkway (U.S. 27). The interesting twist to this road is that it is an extension of Park Avenue, an east/west corridor only with a different name, Doyle Conner Boulevard (a little shorter than the name I coined for it). The twist is Conner Blvd. takes a long curve so it can connect to Apalachee Parkway another east/west corridor. Like we are tying our roads into knots.

Conner Boulevard collects traffic for large scale land uses and deposits it to Capital Circle NE (loop road) or Apalachee Parkway a major corridor. Inadvertently it has also become a shortcut enabling traffic quicker access to Capital Circle NE. Another twist to this road is it seems to have the power to cause people to push harder on their gas pedal. I have personally seen where people have overshot the curves and banged into light standards, driven up embankments and when the sirens wail at 10:30 pm I know that something worse has happened, much much worse.

Doyle Conner Blvd. Tallahassee, FL via Google Maps

Land Use

Land uses along the corridor include a Federal Correctional Center, State Agricultural Facility, a storage yard for Leon County school buses, access to Lincoln High School and other schools as well as a regional park, residential neighborhood and apartment complex. The Google Map display shows that all of the land uses along the corridor are set away from the road. As you can see by the Google Map everything is set away from the roadway.

What Am I Going To Blog About?

The introduction gives a sense of what the road is like. This isn't a blog about safety, design, blame or any of that. This is a blog that thinks about our decisions from the past and promotes change for the future. I want to promote the concept of thinking about your city in 50 and 100 year time-periods. So we begin with an example: Doyle Conner Blvd. Discuss what it is, what it could have been and develop ideas that think within the context of the year 2060 or 2113.

Here is what will be coming next:

Three perspectives for this urban corridor:

1. Hindsight is 20/20 – This is the what if concept that considers the development of the roadway had it been planned as a segment of the original Park Avenue East.
2. Traffic Control Ideas – A concept of what this roadway might look like with a different set of traffic control systems or devices to calm traffic.
3. Land Use Ideas – How might this roadway operate with a different land use pattern and calmer traffic.

And a discussion about how to move a vision for the future forward.

DISCLAIMER: 

I am a Planner and a Writer. I have selected this blog as a method to share my ideas and concepts about urban form; I consider what is and focus on what might be. My primarily purpose is to initiate discussion about how cities grow and what each of us should be doing to help balance progress and a safe sustainable environment. Bottom line, don’t get worked up about the specifics, GET INVOLVED and share your ideas about your community.