Everyone is getting on the BRT train… Or should I say bus?
Went to NOLA in 2019 and used their snazzy Regional Transit Authority app to get around, mostly on the trolley system. I still get newsletters from time to time, and they are apparently looking into adding some BRT and getting feedback from transit users:
Looks like Tampa is likely to get its new tallest building - a 630-footer:
Mostly, but it does exclude things like communications masts (supported by wires) and offshore drilling platforms (supported by water): List of tallest freestanding structures - Wikipedia
Visiting Greenville, SC for a long weekend and was drawn to their Hampton Station, a former cotton warehouse in the Water Tower district (Our Story | Hampton Station). I could see something like this in City Market or the Ironworks development. I know we have something similar at The Dock, but this has some layers and a real attempt at drawing in different groups for different reasons (local pottery shop + pottery classes, e-bike rentals + store, dog hotel, axe throwing, an escape room, multiple shopping suites, a coffee shop, a meadery, a brewery, a Georgian (not the state) restaurant, and a taco shop).
This is a cool post - that’s great GVL spot. So is the Commons out on Welborn.
On that note : I have a dream for a Swamp Rabbit sorta collective ‘concepts’ spot in east Raleigh that is somewhat greenway adjacent…anybody got 5 on it, LoLs…??
At The Commons now having lunch actually. Unity Park is amazing, and having the greenway and river and this food hall place plus 2 breweries all nearby is so cool. I honestly like GVL more than Raleigh I think lol. If only it wasn’t in SC.
That Methodical Coffee is pretty rad. GBD is never a bad thing either…
Which, all this GVL banter reminds me that I need to get back to the Anchorage…
Reported. 
Police on their way!
No one tell him about Chattanooga.
I wondered this while there last week… Apparently VDOT had planned to move I-95 and even I-85 (via a southeast bypass of Petersburg) over to I-295 was considered prior to 1992; I-385 and I-795 would continue to Petersburg, but the rest of the old I-95 inside I-295 would just become a state route. The unfinished I-295 was even shown as “future I-95” on the 1984 state highway map. Yet somehow that just never happened after I-295 was completed, and the RPT’s tolls ended, in 1992.
A NewsBank search turns up an August 12 Richmond Times-Dispatch article with opposition from entrenched roadside businesses: “economic development directors feared that the opening of the final leg of the I-295 bypass on June 25 would lead to an exodus of motorists from I-95, which runs through the region’s urban core… Officials had predicted that as many as 25,000 of the estimated 46,000 vehicles traveling through the area on I-95 each day would move over to I-295.” But traffic levels on I-95 in late July had actually increased to 74,540 VPD since the tolls went away, and I-295 was almost empty with just 12,172 VPD.
Man, that’s wild. Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever had Google Maps recommend taking I-295 instead of plowing straight ahead on I-95. Even with traffic, it’s still the faster option. I think, like everything else, I-295 just ended up being a sprawl enabler.
One interesting thing about that map… it looks like they just let I-64 become fragmented? Or was the idea that it would still follow its existing routing?
I lived in Richmond about the time that 288 was opened up. It always made me wonder why they didn’t make 288 meet up with 295 on either end. I always said Virginia had a “different” way of doing things, but why not make your two half loops join? I guess the same logic that added 3 SB lanes if I95 with 3 EB lanes of I64 and ended up with 3 combined lanes going into town. That was my commuting joy for 4 years. SMDH
Oh wow, I didn’t even notice VA-288. The highways surrounding Richmond all seem so fragmented that it was easy to miss. That’s… pretty stupid lol.
That stretch is rough. One of the worst-planned segments of I-95 (and I’ve driven from here to Maine many times, so I know I-95 very well).
For a more extreme example: I-66 and VA-267 are two 12-lane roads that mash down into one 4-lane road at Tysons Corner / I-495… yet, thanks to road pricing, there’s less congestion inside the Beltway than outside.
LA is replacing one of its most iconic bridges - the Sixth Street Viaduct, famous from a million movies, but unfortunately built with substandard concrete in an earthquake zone - with a really cool new bridge and a park: I’ll be back: from Terminator to Grease, LA’s most iconic bridge gets a thrilling sequel on seismic springs | Architecture | The Guardian
From:
to
Worthwhile article for some of the silliest “community activist” quotes you’ll ever see - the transit department is replacing an unsafe bridge and throwing in a beautiful park, they’re hardly causing gentrification themselves.
We saw this when we were in LA last year. BIG project!!
Really hoping this is open to the public by the time we visit in September. Looks like it will be if it stays on schedule. It’s supposed to have some amazing views, and the pedestrian access points along the viaduct look really cool.
In the spirit of this thread, some early-spring photos from W. Main St. in Charlottesville, where some new mid-rise buildings are not entirely hiding behind the old two-story houses:
I do like the approach of not having any one building present a long facade along the street, to maintain a more diverse and human-scale rhythm along Main Street. However, I have to imagine that the resulting floor plans are very inefficient (especially the stepped-back upper floors) and the result is visually disconcerting – especially because the older buildings aren’t terribly special.
What do you think about this approach to densification? For better or worse, places like Hillsborough St. or downtown Cary will be seeing a similar difference in scale soon.
A post was merged into an existing topic: Zoning and Density
