Quote:
Originally Posted by wburg
Actually, I said this:
Plenty of urban areas built highways parallel to their waterfront, Sacramento isn't the only city that did it by any means. But what are some ways that other cities addressed this issue in order to improve their waterfront? New York City added a lot of highways in the postwar era, including along their waterfront, led by uber-planner Bob Moses. But he ran smack dab into anti-progress NIMBY activists like Jane Jacobs, who stood up against Moses and his ilk. Jane Jacobs started writing about how cities work, even though she wasn't a professional planner or architect, and changed the national course of urban planning and how we think about cities.
Which is just the sort of thing that Jane Jacobs Walk and Jane Jacobs Roll events are intended to address. What makes cities walkable and liveable, and what are the barriers to walkability, bikeability, and other things that make city neighborhoods nice places to live? There are plenty of interesting examples here in Sacramento--we're going to go find them.
http://sacoldcity.org/?page_id=916
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I think you might be misrepresenting Jane Jacobs a bit when you call her an "anti-progress NIMBY." She was against people like Robert Moss and the so-called urban renewal (redevelopment) efforts of the Mid 20th Century. She opposed the wholesale destruction of historic urban neighborhoods in the name of progress. She was specifically against the de-urbanization of American cities. And as we have seen, she was right. That doesn't mean she would be opposed to smart growth and urban infill today. Her work has to be seen in context -location, times and what was being proposed. We live in different times and not all neighborhoods are as architecturally and historically important as Greenwich Village. Nor are all buildings gems like Pennsylvania Station.
Lawrence Halprin, the famous San Francisco landscape architecture and urban planner, published an interesting book in the 1960's about freeways in the urban environment. He was trying to find ways to successfully integrate them into the existing structure rather than using a one-size-fits-all approach. I think he later conceded it was just not possible. But he did come up with some interesting ideas.
As far as our I-5 problem. The first step we need to make is for the City to see it as a real problem because I don't think City Hall cares all that much.
Putting aside any bypass or tunnel I've thought about other ways we could reduce it's ill effects.
Add pedestrian/bike bridge over the freeway at N Street linking Crocker Park with the Riverwalk. Traffic bridges are much more costly and really not that necessary, especially when the Second Street connector is built. And I wonder if we could build an elevated pedestrian bridge from L Street downtown over 3rd/I-5 to Old Sacramento? I know that sort of thing isn't common in the US but they use pedestrian bridges like that all over Asia.
We also need to make major improvements to the existing pedestrian pathways bwtn Old Sac and downtown - Capitol Mall (in-the-works), K Street Tunnel. We need more than some new lights Steve- but you are going in the right direction. J Street - it's basically anti-pedestrian now. Maybe consider another tunnel here? I Street.
Aside from lack of connectivity noise and visual ugliness are the other big problems. The design has to be one of the worst for generating more noise than is necessary. WTF were they thinking?
We need to build acoustic noise barriers (sound-walls) and screens to block out the noise and view of the freeway. I'm really astonished that the City has yet to build a sound wall and screen between the freeway and Old Sacramento. It's another example of what I call "Sacramento Stupid."
The roadbed in the downtown section of I-5 could also be repaved using noise-reducing asphalt.
And to take it a step further we could cover the freeway with a perforated (open-air) ribbed metal tube-like sound barrier. The freeway would then become sculptural, almost artistic.