An occasional update on items from Motordom – the world of auto dominance.
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PRODUCT PLACEMENT
Here’s an example of great targeting: Preston Schiller has the lead feature article for the current edition of Canadian Civil Engineer:
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“Getting outside the box of the automobile” – Canadian Civil Engineer, Winter 2011/12, pp10-13
The pdf of the whole issue can be downloaded here (it will only be available there for a limited time) and you have to scroll down several pages.
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UNDER-UTILIZED ASPHALT
Big spread in the New York Times by their urban critic Michael Kimmelman on the needed transformation of parking lots – occupying some 3,590 square miles, or an area larger than Delaware and Rhode Island combined – for more diverse uses:
Beyond greener designs and the occasional celebrity-architect garage, we need to think more about these lots as public spaces, as part of the infrastructure of our streets and sidewalks, places for various activities that may change and evolve, because not all good architecture is permanent. Hundreds of lots already are taken over by farmers’ markets, street-hockey games, teenage partiers and church services. We need to recognize and encourage diversity.
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HIGHWAY REMOVAL
As North America’s freeway system begins to crumble – particularly the elevated parts – there will be more opportunities to remove ’em, similar to demiolition of the Embarcadero in San Francisco and Alaskan Way in Seattle. But not so fast, says this piece in Atlantic Cities:
Nearby residents, who conceivably might be thrilled to see this kind of transformation, want to keep the roadway like it was in 1962, not 2012. They worry about commuters getting frustrated by surface rejiggering and attempting shortcuts through residential streets.The hearings and the public process … have revealed a cultural clash: old vs. young, bicyclists vs. solo drivers, yuppies vs. townies, and so on. The fight is in the trenches, in long discussions and blog posts on traffic counts, state modeling and projections, and the methodology of license plate surveys. Everyone’s voice must be heard, a legacy of the exclusion of citizens in the original construction of the roadways, but seemingly a guarantee of paralysis when it comes to repairing the damage they have caused.
Joe Urban debates the pedestrian equivalent – skyway removal – in this perspective from Minneapolis.
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