Inner Loop East Reconstruction and Realignment

The City of Rochester recently sponsored a TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) grant application. This represents the first outward sign that the administration seeks to attempt to heal this tremendous scar on the map. More on the specifics to come, but I'd like to talk a bit about the other grants applied for by New York State and the trend in those awarded nationwide.

According to the Federal Department of Transportation:

"The TIGER (Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery) Discretionary Grant Program was included in the Recovery Act to spur a national competition for innovative, multi-modal and multi-jurisdictional transportation projects that promise significant economic and environmental benefits to an entire metropolitan area, a region or the nation. Projects funded with the $1.5 billion allocated in the Recovery Act include improvements to roads, bridges, rail, ports, transit and intermodal facilities."

Municipal bodies, authorities, and the state DOT submitted applications for 60 different projects. Somewhat interesting, but not surprisingly, six of the nine applications submitted directly by the DOT were highway related. The two that were rail related were extremely notable, so much so that the Moynihan Station application, attempting to rectify a 50 year national disgrace, was the only New York project awarded federal funds this year.

The other New York rail-related DOT application was incredibly ambitious, but incredibly intelligent. Requesting 'only' $29.3M of the $56.35M total cost, a project entitled, "Restoring the
Rail Freight System in Upstate New York's Economically Distressed Region," would 'rehabilitate critical rail freight tracks and structures to a State-of-Good Repair on portions of 17 of the 21 short line railroads serving the economically distressed Upstate New York region to protect existing jobs supported by these services, as well as to position these railroads and areas for future growth.'

While it is unfortunate that Rochester's sole project wasn't included for immediate federal funds, a pattern emerges in those projects which did receive funding that for once does not pay lip service or ignore the stated mission of the discretionary grant program. Just 17 of 51 projects are geared toward motorway improvements. Cities such as Tucson, New Orleans, Detroit, Portland, and Dallas will see streetcar installation or improvement. Numerous multi-modal facilities will be built in smaller cities across the Midwest. Rail corridors as well as their interface with seaports will be enhanced. Even 15 years ago this list would have looked something like this:

• I-4 FL
• I-5 CA, OR, WA
• I-8 CA, AZ
• I-10 ... you get the idea

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Back to Rochester and the Inner Loop project.

Unfortunately the areas mentioned for fill in only include Monroe Avenue to Charlotte Street. It seems as though the emphasis is still on car movement, retaining the connection from the new boulevard to 490 East via the goofy South Avenue 1-leaf clover. Also, if this was ultimately phase 1 of an inner loop retro-fit, why not go all the way to Main Street and restore the original path of University as well as the other half of Anderson Park?

Page 22 has some figures attempting to illustrate the concept of "reclaimed land" that concern me. The unnecessary curving of the boulevard creates a situation where some of Union St. will be dug up for absolutely no reason. On top of this, I believe a maximum of reclaimed is achieved by pasting the boulevard to Union and attempting to restore the orthogonal grid.

Gardiner Park only connects to the northbound segment of the boulevard, in much the same way Atkinson connects to Ford on the phony edge of Corn Hill. Broad Street looks like its being routed through Dryer ALLEY for connection with Alexander. Ugh.

Maps exist that describe in great detail the way this once was and is supposed to be. Why is that so difficult for today's planner who insists on leaving their idiosyncratic marks on absolutely everything?

But, you know what? As I said in a comment on the RochesterSubway blog, fill the damn thing in and we'll argue about the particulars of reclaimed land later. This all shows some amount of enlightened thinking on the part of those with the power to shape our future built environment.

I feel the urge to end this installment with some over-the-top historically significant rhetoric. Read into it what you want.

"Any city gets what it admires, will pay for, and ultimately deserves...We want and deserve tin-can architecture in a tin-horn culture. And we will probably be judged not by the monuments we build, but those we have destroyed." (New York Times Editorial - October 28, 1963)

Urban Redesign Vol. 2

Apologies for the delay in getting Volume 2 up here. I did some preliminary renderings some time ago, but got whacked by the flu last week and fell off the map.

As I unveil some massing renderings that detail the three distinct components of my mixed use structure, I'd like to address the anonymous comments in my last installment. First, thank you for somewhat endorsing my original idea. As shown in the renderings, I did keep a residential component on Winton Road in the form of the apartment building.

A lot of the blanks still need to be filled in. All I have really denoted is a main entrance to the building. I am debating whether it would be flanked by first floor apartments (roughly 5 feet above street level) or street level retail spaces. If I were to go with retail spaces there, would they have secondary street entrances or doors immediately to the left and right in the 'lobby?' I believe most apartments would be 600 square foot one-bedroom apartments. One other note on this section: As drawn, there is a very slightly pitched roof. I may ultimately want to do something more traditional with a cornice to really drive home the 'dignity in urban architecture' in which case a more conventional apartment building roof would be instituted. Thoughts anyone?

Again to the commenter, I do realize that there are very few townhouses in the area and zero properly programmed ones (there are some tucked away suburban style between Main and Mayfield west of Winton). What am I trying to accomplsh there is a slightly larger residental property than an apartment (the 3 townhouses would be a nominal 1440 square feet each) that makes the most efficient use of the land available. I do plan on adding some detail on the front and back of these, but the outlines are shown in the renderings. I've allowed 20' of 'backyard' that also functions as a courtyard for the entire complex.

About the retail programming, basically I'm looking at the ideal situation. I'm also trying to make a connection moreso with the Mayer Hardware block than anything toward Browncroft or Main. On the topic of the corner retail 'building,' the store/restaurant can either be rather large with corner access or a 2nd more narrow storefront could occupy the first floor to the facing Winton Road. The 2nd floor of this classic corner building could either be 2 offices or small apartments.

I feel as though the project is taking on the character of 3 smaller projects, which in my mind gives it a better improvised urbanist feel as related by the blog Suburban Empire in the process of criticizing downtown Winooski, Vermont's 'downtown at once' redevelopment. I would likely use a different brick for each segment with differently designed windows for differentiation.

Next time: More rendering detail, apartment building floorplans, thoughts on parking.

Urban Redesign Vol. 1

I'm pleased to launch a new series of posts today. I suppose they will eventually manifest themselves as quasi-pro bono architecture/urban planning. I hope the process will be somewhat interactive and that some amount of learning takes place on my end. A lot of reality will need to be suspended here in the arenas of zoning, brownfield status, finance, etc. The end result is not to be confused with a real proposal, but an idealist site plan.

The first site I'd like to tackle is the intersection of Humboldt Street and Winton Road at the north end of the North Winton Village. The bulk of the site was previously a gas station and is now a vacant lot. Across Humboldt Street there is additional vacant property due to the demolition of a structurally unsound building adjoining what is now Captain Tony's Pizza and a barbershop (still visible in the Google aerial). Across Winton Road is a Kwik Fill gas station and multifamily residences. All buildings are massed in the model seen to the right (roughly oriented properly with North at the top).

My first thoughts for the site were strictly townhouse development, but as I thought about it further, I decided the corner should have a corner-facing store entryway anchoring it. While I was unable to acquire any official maps, using satellite imagery, I ascertained that the lot is essentially 116 feet by 152 feet from rear property lines to the sidewalk. If the store footprint were 30 x 30, this would leave enough room for four 24 foot-wide townhouses along Winton Road. Along Humboldt Street and above the storefront, I would have proposed apartments in the same style as the rest of the construction for an L-shaped complex structure.

Discussions with a colleague pointed out some amount of backward thinking in this proposal. Walkup townhouses would fit in better with the residential character found west on Humboldt moreso than the main traffic thoroughfare of Winton Road. While this would cut down the number of townhouses to 3 (yes, I could make them narrower, but I currently live in a much narrower townhouse and I don't consider it the proper width for good urban construction, 24 foot is 4 rods, a reasonable platting as discussed on page J3 of The Lexicon of New Urbanism), it allows for additional retail frontage on Winton Road and likely fits in better architecturally with the brick building to the North.

I have not thought much about the land vacated on the Northwest corner, but I'm predisposed to a standard commercial building with an apartment or two on the second floor that would blend in with the existing attached neighbor.

Anyway, I will attempt to mass model my vision in the next few days (and eventually I hope to do some hand sketches of the architectural detail), but I am completely open to suggestions on just about anything including use, scale, sidewalk width, outbuildings, ancillary uses, anything really!