Post details: Ypsilanti WAS Walkable
Ypsilanti WAS Walkable
I just saw this Ann Arbor News article at Ypsidixit and am absolutely infuriated by it.
Apparently some time last week, the executive director of Walkable Communities, Inc., sponsored by the Cool Cities Initiative, walked through Ypsilanti and made a number of ridiculous recommendations.
"One of (Burden's) suggestions was to design a pontoon walkway system that can rise and fall with the water level," Goulet said. "It's a creative system to get people across Michigan Avenue or under the bridge." - A floating walkway over the Huron would be useless. Not only is there nothing on the other side of the river to walk to, but if the DNR allowed the city to put it in, I doubt it would fair well over the winter. The city is not able to keep the trees trimmed in the parks and recently appointed a Blue Ribbon Commission to look for ways to cut the budget further. The last thing we need is another useless thing to maintain.
Factors such as sidewalk width, traffic speeds and handicap accessibility were taken into consideration - Having a community that is walkable from parking spaces to stores isn't what Richard Florida had in mind. A walkable community is defined as one in which you can get the majority of needed services within 1/8th of a mile of your residence. Ypsilanti is missing the "services" part of this equation.
Transformer boxes that hang on posts two feet above the ground could be obstacles for blind people using canes to feel their way along the sidewalk. "A simple solution is to put a pot of flowers under it." - How much money will we spend on the 2 blind people walking around town? Again, the city is not able to keep the trees trimmed. At the last city council meeting, several people from Bell and Casler streets came to beg for gutters and curbs on their street... they didn't even ask for sidewalks. Ypsilanti should be ashamed to have two streets so close to the central business district without sidewalks.
New benches to provide a resting spot for pedestrians and adding wheelchair ramps are other small additions that the DDA will explore. - Again, there has to be a place to walk to. It's nice that this group was able to take a stroll around town, but the rest of us are walking for transportation. We don't have time to sit around on a bench (unless it's at a bus stop) and the flowers are one more thing to maintain that you can't chain a bike to.
Burden also suggested reducing Huron and Hamilton streets to two lanes by adding angle parking, thereby slowing traffic and encouraging people to park their cars and walk through the city. - This takes the cake. Not only will MDOT never approve Huron or Hamilton (trunkline) lane reductions, but rows of cars in-front of businesses hinders walkablility. Cars parked on the street make crossing dangerous by obscuring the view of pedestrians and drivers. Parking belongs behind buildings.
Dan Burden doesn't know the first thing about Ypsilanti and has no business evaluating our city after one pleasure stroll through town. Every public participation event Steve and I have been to has resulted in the city going along with the recommendations of an out-of-town consultant (or public university) against the wishes of citizens at the meeting. Steve asked for financing information for the Water Street Project months ago and the city blew him off. Others have started to ask questions and aren't doing much better. We also asked the city who decided to change the original plan from commercial units on Michigan Avenue to residential. They have not responded. Ironically, some of the ground on the site is heavily contaminated and may not be salable as residential. The solution: Spot zone it for commercial!
Comments:
Maybe the state and fed. Highway people see this and are lukewarm to Ypsi's future growth?
Ypsilanti is the way it is because M-12, M-17, and I-94 all converge in a tight area.
Traffic needs to get from Washtenaw to Michigan Avenue. Slowing all this traffic down isn't going to help Ypsilanti.
But downtown Ypsi is kinda screwed because too many outside forces (natural and unnatural) are keeping traffic moving at unfriendly speeds. You have to get all the way into E Dearborn to see any kind of in-town speeds on Mich ave. And almost everywhere West, you are taking you life into your hands just trying to cross (even in Saline).
http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2004/08/05.html#a830
I think this is a compelling reason to live in the city, Mark. You're very close to the train station and the bus station. Your property value is going to shoot way up when the light rail opens (and I believe it will eventually). Your yard is big enough for subsistance farming too.
Yes, but they are all one-way. Washtenaw (17) comes from Ann Arbor two way, but becomes one way at the water tower. From there, most take Hamilton from Washtenaw to either Michigan Ave (12) or 94. The other way, Washtenaw is Cross Street, which is one way begining at Huron. There is a request from the city with M-DOT to have Cross and a few other streets changed to 2-way traffic, but few think it will ever happen. That being said, I think it is the only one of all the traffic proposals I've heard about that has any chance of being approved. Even if it is though, there is a proposal to "improve" Cross Street with parking on the street and narrow sidewalks.
http://seat.defcode.com/index.php?title=west_cross_street_did_the_developers_lis&more=1&c=1&tb=1&pb=1#comments
Again cars are the problem, but they are also the main source of indirect revinue --- even in Ypsi.
(me is flabbergasted)
This consultant is too useless to look at the big picture; that's probably partially his fault and partially the city's fault for paying him to ignore the big stuff, but there's really no excuse for looking at Ypsi and saying the biggest problem to walkability is putting flowerpots under transformers. I don't think I've *ever* seen a city where that would rate as a prime walkability issue.
Regardless, on-street parking is bad for walkability. Parked cars obscure the view of street-crossing pedestrians who then step off the curb into the street to see better. Drivers don't see them standing behind the cars and clip them on right hand turns. To make angle parking safe for peds, the city would have to build bump-outs at all the corners. The city shouldn't be building bumpouts when Casler and Bell have no gutters or curbs or sidewalks.
Shoppers can park their cars in The Habitrail (parking ramp), which has commercial space on the first floor. They can then walk 8 blocks in an improved alley and visit over 100 stores on both sides.
This pedestrian walkway has kiosks for fliers, benches, and an occasional planter for skateboarders to fliptrick trick off. Police on bicycles zoom by occasionally.
We're looking too hard for solutions and we're making them up out of thin air. This myopia is killing me. Go park in the Habitrail and walk down to Rick's American Cafe and then tell me we need on-street parking.
Banners, Berms, Bricks, Benches, and Bumpouts are the products of a sucessful area. Not the precursors.
If we instead grew commerce and quit down-zoning our cool little city, we'd all start to see the benefits.
When people cut a path across a park, that's when you put in a walkway. When bicycles are locked to fences, that's when you build bikeracks. When people are sitting on the bikeracks, that's when you build a bench.
We've got the cart before the ox and nobody understands.
I recognized the proffesor in an article about EMU planning as someone we'd talked to at the Cross Street meeting. I've seen no other evidence of involvement.
The cool cities initiative started because Michigan is losing young people like rats from a sinking ship. The national consulting firm they hired has 1 employee. I'm sure they were chosen because they were lucky enough to have registered walkable.org.
The truth is that most of Michigan is like Grand Rapids.
http://bunker.defcode.com/index.php?p=77&more=1&c=1&tb=1#comments
All my old friends have joined cults, died or left the state. Michiganders should be ashamed of the state of our cities, but people with money never see the tough parts of town and could care less about them. The adult literacy rate in Detroit hovers around 50%. The extent of urban renewal in Michigan is white people with money building enclaves of opulance in the hardest hit (black) areas so they can enjoy the excitement of the city during heavily policed events.
If you have a minute, check out the DetroitYES Rivertown tour.
http://detroityes.com/webisodes/2003/04autumn/05-01atWatRC.htm
There's a Borders across from the RenCen now.
Steve is absolutely correct in that Grand River in East Lansing is HOPPING! But the fact that Michigan State University is DIRECTLY across the street with its critical mass and "consumer" density provides the audience for those businesses. Parking or not - most people can just walk across the street.
Most of the dorms at MSU clear across campus from Grand river save the Virgin Vault and that's up by the library, almost a 1/2 mile from Grand River.
Peds get across the 4 lanes for Grand River just fine since they put in the ped-friendly boulevards in the early 90s. Before that it was a dash across. It's much like our Michigan Ave in many ways.
Grand River in East Lansing is MDOT Trunkline with no on-street parking and it's a success. So we can rule that out.
I noticed that cities swing from one extreme to another on this parking issue. Main Street Ann Arbor has on-street parking and their sidewalks are too narrow. They only gain a scant few spots this way anyway.
The logical solution here is to remove the 10-few spots per block and widen the sidewalk. Instead I hear proposals of closing the whole street down to pedestrian mall.
One extreme to another.
I'd most like to have wide sidewalks on Michigan, Cross, and Huron with off-street parking.
I think you guys are missing the boat here. Walkable Communities are not just about making cities more "walk friendly;" It is also about changing the mindset of people and creating a "sense of place" in a city. To be a city of success, you need to stand out above and beyond what other cities are doing. I could go on for hours, and I'm positive I could convince you in person, but thousands have other cities have already done things like this, and that's why people choose Austin, Texas or Asheville, North Carolina over Yspilanti. Your city needs to stand out from the rest. Not many people move to cities because they have the best Super Wal-Mart. And in a few years, every place on Earth will have a Super Wal-Mart.
Oh by the way, what they say directly ties in with what Richard Florida speaks about. I have seen them all speak before. I also believe that they are personal colleagues with him. I probably will be meeting with Dan Burden in a few weeks and I'll have to mention how closed-minded the people of Yspilanti were to his great ideas. Why do you think he has been successful in the past? Because he gets it, and most of America just doesn't get it.
Burden's departure from Richard Florida's ideas are more-than-apparant and Florida's ideas are simply derivitive of Jane Jacbob's work. Burden's got the cart before the ox and so does Ypsilanti.
You see Ypsilanti is nearly bankrupt. We have three police on duty for 25,000 people, we've cancelled the entire recreation budget, the fire department is operating below NFPA standards, and our store-fronts are empty. Ypsilanti doesn't even have a super-market.
Of course you relize that a walkable community is one in which most goods and services are within a 1/8 mile walk. Just to clue you in, we don't have most goods and services. Come on up sometime, I'll show you around.
All this Burden garbage is contingent on there being something to walk to. For the past thirty years the city has worked on a number of projects to "create a sense of place", you can read about them in the back issues Ypsilanti Historical Foundation Newsletter. In the 80s it was "gateways offering a sense of space". No evidence of gateways today. Apparently Eric has some new idea about "sense of place" that haven't yet been tried.
We have park pathes that are in-use and crumbling yet the State ships Dan Burden out here to give us ideas on how to spend money and suggests changing things of which we have no control.
He suggested a floating pontoon bridge across the river. I'm sure the DNR would have a laugh about that one.
Eric, are you a floating-bridge salesman? Have you ever read The Death and Life of Great American Citites by Jane Jacobs?
For cities to be walkable they must have good and services to walk to. We can decorate our walkways with flowers and bullshit once: when we do have some businesses, or twice: once now and again when we have some businesses.
Burden's ideas are fine for communities with extra money to spend, Ypsilanti's not one of those communities and Burden is no Student of Florida's or Jacobs'.
When you say they were "highly successful in Dayton", what exactly do you mean? Has their visit had a measurable impact on walkability in Dayton?
Ypsilanti has a "sense of place". Every 10 years some crackpot sells the City on banners, planters, trees and bushes and they have no effect on our empty downtown. Ypsilanti is never going to have the money to be the most flower saturated city in the county. We're going to have to make it on character (which luckily we have plenty of, even if the City is trying to crush it).
The point is that none of Burden's suggestions address the real problems in town... those you find out about by living here.
a) The police have a history of civil rights abuses. The city just paid off Adult Book Store and now (after being caught on VIDEO) the police are being investigated by the FBI for another unwarranted search. The officers being investigated are STILL working.
b) How would you like to live here? Diversity was a key point in Florida's book. We have a serious racism and segregation problem that is not being addressed.
c) Taxes are outrageous. People in the Central Business District are paying $6000/yr.
d) Slumlords and speculators are asking way too much for buildings that are falling in. Young people can afford to rent but not buy. 66% of town is rentals.
e) TIF financed property specualtion may bankrupt the City.
What we really need are some goddamn $300 bike racks because nothing is within walking distance. Our zoning doesn't permit it. Even better than bike racks, changes to zoning ordinances are free.
I am a planner and I feel the same way that you do, that conventional planning in a lot of ways has destroyed cities. That's why I feel obligated to make a change in planning. TIFs screwed up my hometown as well. And I agree, if there is nothing to walk to, why invest all this money into something that won't be utilized? The same problems we face in Dayton. The trick is trying to find the cheap ways of doing it that can serve as a catalyst for other things. I personally don't like investing tons of money necessarily into streetscaping, because a lot of times it's not done right.
The way that the workshops have been successful in Dayton is the buzz that has been created. And there are small steps, but the backbone is already in place with regional committees. Communities are applying to the DOT for money. Artists are getting involved in activities in downtowns designing public art, and so on and so on.
I think the pontoon boat idea sounds cool, and it could be something that really brings people to Ypsilanti. My guess is that it wouldn't and it would be way too expensive. But what does it hurt to be creative sometimes? I'm sure he didn't focus too much on that point. I did bring it up with him, though. Sometimes communities take to him well, and sometimes they don't. Especially ones that have been sold things before that didn't work. I think the main thing is to get cheaply creative, and have champions for walkable communities in places of power. It takes people that care to turn things around.
And no, I am not in the planter or the floating-bridge business. Although I do like planters when overdone in small sections. I have not read Jacobs book either although since I've been in a planning background, it's only been referenced like 8,000 times. At least it sounds like your city is trying, and hopefully someone can turn it around. My guess is one look into your city's budget and I could find plenty of areas where there could be money to use for walkable communities efforts (bit by bit). And by the way, just because Dan Burden said all of this, doesn't mean that I agree with it all. Just seemed like no one was defending his side.
Have a nice day.
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