Photos by Frank Carlson
Last night Bob Whetsel (pictured above), director of redevelopment for the city, and a couple of contract firms, including landscape architecture firm Hedstrom Design, presented their draft plan for the downtown north streetscapes.
The meeting was held at St. John's Lutheran Church and witnessed a pretty decent turnout for what, on its face, seemed like a fairly dry, nuts-and-bolts event: ways to alter streets and intersections to invite more pedestrians, bikers and visitors to the area. Certainly important, just not terribly sexy.
Much of the plans consisted of narrowing streets, widening sidewalks and creating artificial barriers with trees, small fences and crosswalks that: 1) show residents and visitors that this is a place to be cared about and 2) give form to massive concrete expanses. These grey, open areas create psychological unease for pedestrians, and sometimes, explained Sara Hedstrom of Hedstrom Design, adding small additions can dramatically improve a space's use.
This meeting reminded me of James Howard Kunstler's speech at the TED talks a couple of years ago. One of Kunstler's best (and incidentally, least profane) lines:
You cannot overstate how important this task is, precisely because the quality that so many places in America share today is that they have become places that are not worth caring about. And sooner or later a country full of places that are not worth caring about will become a nation that is not worth defending.From last night's meeting, comments will now be incorporated into a plan to determine what projects are worth pursuing and for what cost.
Some key questions remain: would it be more conducive to development to make modest projects diffusely across the region or concentrate funds on one or two sites and thus send an immediate signal to locals and visitors alike?
Another big issue is parking -- do you reduce the amount of parking per square foot required for aesthetics and rely on more foot and bike traffic? Or will that discourage businesses from relocating to the area?
These aren't easy questions to answer, but at least people are now asking them.
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