Columbusite

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Victorian Village is filled with great residential streets and locals are within walking/biking distance from the Short North which serves as the main commercial street for residents. In the core of the neighborhood is one of the best city parks, Goodale Park. Both that and Neil Ave are lined with some of the best homes in the city.

For some reason, this didn’t dawn on me until today. Sure I understand traffic calming methods and how well-made urban streets see little animosity between cyclists and drivers, but I never thought about the fact that it’s not so much drivers that are at fault when they honk at us. Instead of getting mad at them (provided they do no more than honk/finger/curse) you should direct your anger at those who design the roads. Drivers are just doing what the roads tell them to do: drive fast. What crystallized this was biking up Park St past Goodale. As I was in the middle the intersection of Goodale & Park I could hear a car was coming near. Take a good look (I was heading from where those green lights are towards the screen).

This is not an ordinary intersection: it’s extremely wide and just look at how the curbs are set way back. It simply makes drivers want to go faster. Now just picture little ‘ole me coming down the road towards you with a car behind me. So, car wants to go faster because of suburban road design, bike is in front and what’s on the other side of this picture? Bam! There’s an akward, dangerous median for us cyclists.

Can you guess what happened next? The driver honked at me. The people who designed this road has drivers speeding faster at the intersection only to plop a median immediately at the end of it. Telling cars to speed + abrupt median = wasted money on a miserable, grade-school attempt at traffic calming, a symptom of which is pissed drivers honking at cyclists. Of course, after being honked at I didn’t bear right in the slightest (you don’t want to encourage them) and once oncoming traffic cleared I motioned to pass around me. Nervous cyclists who hug the curb will be able to give vehicles room to pass at first when riding along this median, but then the curb juts out and you can see just how little room there would be for a cyclist if you also have cars passing by where that truck is. A doozy for uneducated cyclists.

A park of all things should be surrounded by slow streets. Come on Columbus, where are some speed humps here? You had no problem placing several on Duncan, or Blake, or those speed tables along the south side of the Franklin Park Conservatory. Fix that median and extend the curbs of the Goodale-Park intersection (it wouldn’t cost us more money if you would’ve done it right the first time). Send your properly channeled anger and frustration (in the form of constructive criticism or suggestions) to the Transportation Division of Columbus.

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The Short North was left to rot by Columbus residents who moved to the (then brand new) heavily-subsidized sprawling developments consisting of vinyl-sided homes and strip malls. Buildings were vacant, crime was common in nearby Goodale Park, and suburbanization/urban renewal was making its mark.  Even so, the potential of this great urban strip could not be held down. A few decades later, the Short North is the trendiest street in the city filled with places to go and a success story that other commercial streets can look to as an example. Rents have been climbing higher and higher as the street becomes more geared toward visitors than residents causing some to question whether it has become a victim of its own success by pushing out artists who helped with gentrification area out of the neighborhood. Regardless, the Short North holds plenty of interest.

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The lesser-known of the “Villages”, Italian Village holds its own. There’s quality architecture, including a good share brick rowhouses and it’s proximity right next to the Short North on High St means a short walk or bike ride is all it takes to reach several galleries, shops, and restaurants. There’s a (mostly) redeveloped park and lots of good urban infill that has been completed with more on the way.

A problem for many Columbus neighborhoods is that there is so much potential and too few people willing to step up and invest in our commercial corridors and Long St in King Lincoln is no exception. However, Long St is in the beginning stages of a rebirth. With the refurbishing of the Lincoln Theatre, Hamilton Park Condos, new commercial space along with a new coffee shop there is a budding momentum.

Unfortunately, Long St is another in the long (no pun intended) list of recent major screw-ups in our urban landscape which will unnecessarily set this street back for years and demonstrates that the city still doesn’t get it regarding good urban planning, whether we are talking about local residents or city leaders. Where others may have followed in the footsteps of the new coffee shop by rehabbing a couple of buildings across the street, the city took away any chance of a totally revitalized intersection for a long time to come by allowing the demolition of those buildings. Now, we will have to wait for a developer to build something there and you can bet they aren’t clamoring to fill in those spots anytime soon as the high number of pre-existing grass lots which have remained barren for years will attest. Not only that, but who is going to want to invest in another building there only to have nearby buildings reduced to rubble, preventing other businesses from adding urban energy to the area which would collectively benefit all who are concentrated there. After all, a high number of destinations in a small, walkable place is attractive whereas grass lots dotted with buildings are not. Take a look for yourself at Long St with Google streetview and check out how unwalkable the street has become or better yet, go there in person for a stroll. Note that the building on the north-east side on Long and 17th is now a dirt lot.

How does more of this

help this?

Due to the city government not willing to take a serious stand for preserving buildings we can expect other commercial streets in lower-income neighborhoods to continue to bear the brunt of the city’s refusal to make a commitment for the betterment of these neighborhoods. Sadly, residents in these neighborhoods generally don’t understand the direct impact that urban planning has on their lives and how the city government’s acquiesence of these actions seriously hurts these neighborhoods further. On a national level, we have the National Register of Historic Places, which has no teeth in preserving buildings as we learned the hard way with the demolition of the Firestone mansion. Whether it’s a thriving commercial street in a good neighborhood like Grandview (marred on the Columbus side by two ugly buildings with large parking lots facing the street) or Long St as described above, the city never fails to prevent streets like these from reaching their full potential. By maintaining a 35MPH speed limit, allowing the destruction of exisiting buildings and parking lots to be located up against the street, this really calls into question whether the city actualy wants this neighborhood to improve when they will not enforce basic urban planning guidelines for successful mixed-use streets. Even with a revitalized theatre and some condos, a street that accomodates cars at the expense of people can logically expect to see plenty of cars and few people until the city gets serious about making this street a place people want to be.

Edit: I came across the city’s King-Lincoln District Plan and noticed that there was not a single mention of slowing down 35MPH streets in the neighborhood or anything about traffic calming in general, which is essential for vibrant, mixed-use streets. What’s funny is there are pictures of two buildings shown under the title “Commercial Opportunities” and like I mentioned earlier the city allowed for those opportunities to be bulldozed out of existence.

Downtown used to have numerous hotels contributing to the buzzing activity on our streets; the Neil House Hotel (replaced by the Huntington tower; 9:00-5:00 activity only), Deshler Hotel (replaced by a generic office building; 9:00-5:00 activity only), and the Chittenden Hotel (replaced by Nationwide tower #?, also 9:00-5:00 only), all lined High St Downtown at one time. More buildings had to be torn down for employee parking. Further east the former Seneca Hotel was saved from becoming a parking lot (now just “The Seneca“) and will soon add nearly 100 residents Downtown. An article on Planetizen promotes hotels as a key to revatilization and seeing how they once worked in our Downtown it looks like the proposal for a boutique hotel at Gay & High is a good idea. Four stories sounds like it’s not very high for being in the heart of the city, but it’s important to take the function of the building into account  vs size, as our tallest result in empty sidewalks after five. Whether or not this particular plan comes to fruition we will see, but these would certainly help fill in High St to better connect Gay to High (where’s an arch so that visitors can’t miss it?) and also improve the urban fabric of High St itself.

These are better than Cleveland’s. They don’t just list historical and cultural sites, but restaurants, bars, retail and something I found unusual, apartments and condos. While it shows where the Arena District is, these do not point you to nearby neighborhoods, which is certainly a downside if you happen to be a visitor who is unfamiliar with the city. You most likely won’t stumble into German Village or that cool little section of Parsons across the highway on your own. But, then what do I know? I don’t have a degree in whatever it is. You can click the picture for a larger version.

This is who’s responsible for our roads. If you want to see any changes direct your suggestions to them. I have a laundry list of improvements, but for the most part more streets should look like our 1st unofficial bicycle boulevard Downtown on Gay, they need to stop insisting that the 25MPH speed limit on Neil, 3rd Ave, and King are “temporary”, and more city streets need to be slowed down to 25MPH, especially ones where the limit is artificially high, i.e. it feels like it should be 25MPH.

Lower speed limits aren’t just for preventing the needless deaths and injuries of cyclists and pedestrians, but for up and coming streets to make any real progress to become another worthy destination which will breathe more life (and $$$) into our city, they are a necessity. One of the key factors for a street with commercial stretches on it to become revitalized is that it must feel safe. Every single vibrant commercial corridor in this city is 25MPH, with the exception of 3rd St in German Village which is 30MPH, and that includes High St in the Short North & OSU, Gay St Downtown, E Main in Bexley (this one is especially telling as it’s the only vibrant section of Main while the rest is 35MPH), and Grandview Ave in Grandview.

Here’s my inquiry to 311@columbus.gov which is the city’s Transportation Division;

Dear Transportation Division,

Just some suggestions for what needs to be done which I posted on my blog. I live Downtown and I don’t have a car because I don’t need one, I bike everywhere. I’m just curious about what the transportation division is going to do in the immediate future. Decades have passed while pedestrians and cyclists have seen very little, if anything at all to make roads safer for us on inner-city roads, like Front and High streets between Downtown and the Short North.

—–Original Message—–
From: 311
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 5:33 PM
To: Lewis, William A.
Subject: FW: Safer roads

Mr. Lewis

Please respond to Mr. M. or forward this to the appropriate personnel. Thank you.

Keith -

I have reviewed your concerns with staff and will be providing you a detailed response, along with your issues on Front Street, by mid-July. As you can imagine, we are receiving a number of inquires regarding bike travel now that the Bicentennial Bikeways Plan has been adopted by City Council. We want to take the time and provide thoughtful and accurate responses to each one.

Please contact me with any questions.

William A. Lewis, P.E.
City Traffic Engineer/Planning Services Manager
Transportation Division
Department of Public Service
109 N. Front Street, 3rd Floor
Columbus, OH 43215-9024

Voice (614) 645-6086
Fax (614) 645-7921
walewis@columbus.gov

www.cityofcolumbus.org

Just goes to show that even sending an e-mail makes a difference. He could just end up sending me something more specific about the bikeways plan and how it will make the city better for bikes, which it won’t because it focuses on bike-lanes and if you regularly “take the lane” like me and have tried biking as though a bike lane were there, when you do cars will try all sorts of dangerous crap (for you, not the cars) as I’ve had cars squeeze by (even on wide roads where I would bear further right), speed to turn in front of me, etc, which is why I rarely stay out of the middle of the lane on just about any road.

But back to what I was saying and that is the fact that even if your comments/suggestions are blown off it at least lets the city know what people want. More people raising objections to the current layout and suggesting what they want to see means that they are more likely to make changes that will make local urbanites like myself happy. According to the response, they’ve been receiving quite a few e-mails, so that’s good to hear.

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*Yes, I already had this up as a page, but I added a new interactive Google Maps feature (finally, WordPress made it work!) to show what is in the neighborhood and I supplied an easy-to-use car-less COTA route. This will be done for other neighborhoods as well in the future.*

Despite confusion over the proper name of the neighborhood, King-Lincoln or it’s full name King-Lincoln Bronzeville, was a prosperous black neighborhood back in the day whose theatre hosted the best jazz acts in country when coming to Columbus. Not so prosperous today, but along with the restoration of the Lincoln Theatre and gentrification of homes in the neighborhood, one of the best for quality architecture, this neighborhood bordering downtown is oozing with potential. These photos are all near Long St, which is till being subjected to urban renewal/demolitions to this day. Even though the area offers little aside from great architecture (be sure to check out Hamilton Park off of Broad), there are a few reasons to warrant a visit.

Biking around town, it’s hard to say what the city’s stance on complete streets is. On Saturday, all I wanted to do after buying a delicious sticky bun from Pattycake Bakery (I couldn’t tell it was vegan based on taste, and they are only sold on Saturdays) was try out the coffee which I had heard a lot about at Yeah, Me Too on Indianola. It was very good, unlike the ride to get there. Leaving the bakery, my options to get there were Weber or Tibet.

I probably should have picked Tibet. Weber simply is not bike-friendly, despite the fact that it is a residential street. That is due to the 35 MPH speed limit, which I’m sure people ignored as they passed me. While everyone gave me plenty of room, it is unsettling to be headed up a rather steep hill, that just continually ascends. Widening the gap between the speed of cars, which don’t have to take physical exertion into consideration, and that of bikes when there is already a wide margin thanks to a ridiculously high speed limit on a neighborhood street makes one feel unsafe on the road, even while biking by the book. Residential streets should be held to a universal standard of a maximum 25MH speed limit along with the necessary infrastructure to ensure that limit is not exceeded, as signs alone are never enough.

However, a couple of nearby, parallel streets that are located south of Weber are 25MPH and covered with several speed humps, which are great for bikes since you can maintain a good speed while going over these.

There are more further down the street.

Some consistency would be nice, since this demonstrates that making streets ped/bike friendly can and has been done.

And then here is the newly paved Broad St Downtown;

not a single improvement to make it safer for pedestrians or cyclists: no reduction of lanes, no median, no speed hump, no crosswalk, not even a single sharrow in one of the right hand lanes. We have to wait and vote on road improvements that are ped/bike friendly (ie, those included in the bikeways plan). Yet it just gets done and money is no issue as long as it ensures that cars can speed through at the expense of the safety of those not in cars. While city council is pushing complete streets (well, at least O’Shaughnessy is), what does it mean when the transportation division won’t even make the smallest, inexpensive improvement on this street?

For example, the current light pattern on our mini-highways like Broad give motorists green light after green light which results in them speeding well over the speed limit and is dangerous to pedestrians and cyclists on the road. Increasing the number of stop-and-go light patterns would not require any new infrastructure whatsoever and would succeed in making traffic safer for cyclists on the road and people crossing the street. Wide, high-speed multi-lane roads like these sever the connections within their respective neighborhoods including those that can’t afford to continue to be torn apart; they have no place in an urban environment. If you want to speed we are inundated with a bounty of highways to choose from. We don’t need several miniature highways to further butcher and alienate our neighborhoods. I always feel for those residents of Olde Towne East who can’t even safely cross Broad because they are forced to choose between running across seven lanes of high-speed traffic or walking to the closest crosswalk which is at a light several blocks away on either side. Who is going to walk that every time just to cross the damn street?

So to summarize, I have serious doubts about the ability of those pushing for change vs those who are just fine with the status quo. Not in the sense that we won’t prevail, as I’m sure we’ll will win out (better ideas are better ideas), but in the ability to get it done in a timely matter and preferably while I still have the physical capacity to take advantage of these improvements.