Transit Corridors

Regarding traffic corridors, I have looked at the roads running through the site as a hindrance that will cause divisions in the space. I later decided that I should respect and embrace these and view the site as four separate spaces. After studying the transit through the city and through the site, it is clear that the Broadway corridor is busiest in the city. Of the 45 MTA routes, 14 of them run through the site, most of them using Broadway. Most exciting is the new Bus Rapid Transit line, which will run through the site starting in 2013.

While reading through the MTA’s transit study concerning future transit options for Nashville, I ran into an interesting paragraph. It reads, “The East‐West Connector serves as the region’s Main Street. More than any other corridor in the area, it brings together universities, hospitals, businesses, tourist and cultural attractions, key residential areas and centers of federal, state and local government. From St. Thomas Hospital to LP Field, from Vanderbilt University to the honky tonks of Lower Broadway, everyone in the region has a reason to use this vital corridor.”

For a park that will serve the surrounding neighborhoods, the city, and tourists, being situated along this corridor is a great advantage, as it will provide easy and convenient access for everyone. The importance of this corridor will also help to dictate design decisions. Transit stops will be important.

Nashville Existing Parks

I put this diagram together which outlines the existing parks in Nashville and their relation to the proposed deck park. The blue circle around the site represents a half mile radius, which is widely accepted as a comfortable walking distance. There are few options within the site. Notice that there are no parks near the gulch, which is a mixed use development started in the early 2000’s. It is located just southeast of the southeast corner of the site, near 12^th avenue and division. This park would fulfill a void of open space between midtown and downtown.

Site Model

Here are some images of a site model that I made. I think it will be a useful tool in the design process. I still need to mass up some buildings, but I am considering waiting on the buildings along the fringes of the site so that I might build those as porposed buildings along the park.

Rose Kennedy Greenway

Today I went back and revisited an appraisal of the Rose Kennedy Greenway in Boston. While the Big Dig was widely praised as a linear, connected greeway, Alex Krieger offers some criticism. Boston is much older and larger than Nashville, but I feel that there is much to be learned from this project.

Krieger points to the insight of Jane Jacobs. He argues that the Rose Kennedy Greenway should not have been designed as a single linear park, but that it should have been looked at as seven different parks. As a single linear park, it is severly fragmentated by crossing streets and the presence of access ramps to the highway blow. The site in Nashville will face the same challenges.

 He uses the nearby Post Office Square, which is only three blocks from the RKG, as an example. This space has the appropriate development along its fringes and offers users intimacy. “Post Office Square is brilliant not only for its extensive and beautiful planting, and so on a roof of a substantial underground garage, but because it is perfectly sized for a downtown, and its logical users, and very well located.” 

Having read Jacobs perspective on urban design, I agree with this idealology. Perhaps this offers insight on how to approach the design of a linear park over I-40 in Nashville. Broadway and Demonbreun both bring six lanes of traffic across the interstate. Division would perhaps be less intimidating to pedestrians with four lanes. There is also Church Street to the North with five lanes and 12^th Avenue on the south with four lanes. These streets will likely make it difficult to achieve much linear connectivity. Instead, perhaps viewing each segment as its own moderately scaled square with a mix of uses will be appropriate. The size of each segment is comparable to the size of Post Office Square.

Literature Review

I'm going to get my progress to this point updated on this blog so that my committee will be aware. My readings thus far have mostly been concerning highways in cities and parks in cities. The following is a brief review of my readings.


The Death and Life of Great American Cities - Jane Jacobs

This book is a great look into a city from the ground level. One of the key topics she discusses pertaining to my project is that of "border vacuums". Border vacuums often occur in cities along large swaths of single use areas, such as large parks, large housing projects, waterways, railroads or interstates. When the areas directly around these large land use areas are left unused or in blight, this is the result of a border vacuum.

There is certainly a border vacuum on the fringes of Interstate 40. I think careful attention must be paid to the fringes of any future park over the interstate to prevent this. I think Erin's project last semester addressed the fringes of the site so I look forward to learning more about her work. Development along the edges of the park will be important.

There is also a chapter focused on the automobile in the city called, Erosion of Cities or Attrition of Automobiles. Like other readings I have done, Jacobs recognizes the convenience the automobile brings us. It is our reliance on the automobile that causes the problem. The addition of parking, widening of roads, and introduction of interstates causes the erosion of the city. This process often happens slowly, but the results over time are enormous. This is evident when comparing an arial from 1959 Nashville with an arial from today.

Interstate: Express Highway Politics, 1941-1956 - Mark H. Rose

This book gave a good insight into the thought process of postwar interstate planning. The primary motives of were economic growth, faster traffic, and renewed cities. The main promoters for the interstates were leaders of trucking firms, planners, farmers, and engineers. There is a chapter concerning highways in the city. It seems that many of the planners of the time viewed the highways as a way to renew cities. This, of course, was not the view of all planners, but it was the majority.

The Highway and the City - Lewis Mumford

                Lewis Mumford was certainly an outspoken opponent of the interstate system in urban areas. This book highlights much of that criticism. Relevant points include the sacrifice of other forms of transportation for that of the personal automobile. I find it interesting in that Nashville is now implementing a Bus Rapid Transit line that will run through my site. It seems that many of his warning which were widely ignored are evident in the condition of the city today. One of these warnings is aimed at engineers for not learning from the lessons of the railroad. These lessons include pollution and urban destruction that it often brought when not properly thought out. There is a railroad only two blocks away from the interstate in Nashville. What a coincidence!

Freeways – Lawrence Halprin

                In this book, Halprin outlines the form-giving potential that highways can have in the city. Written in the mid-sixties, it is in some ways a critique of freeways in America. Urban freeways are discussed in depth. Urban freeways are meant to serve three purposes. One is to function as a by-pass road. Two is to serve the commuter from the suburbs. The third is to serve the commuter within the city. From this framework I ask myself, “how does interstate-40 serve Nashville and how does the entire system serve Nashville”. But do I really need to understand the interstate system? Yes and no. Yes if I am going to need to make modifications to the current flow of traffic. That would require knowledge of the entire transportation system. No if I am simply going to design a park over the interstate and keep the existing road system as is. At this point, I am not sure. I do believe that the roads as they exist are going to bring fragmentation issues which I will have to consider.

Back to Halprin’s book, below grade urban highways are deemed as a viable option because they hide the freeway from view, crossing is achieved with at grade bridges, and they depress volumes somewhat. The disadvantage is in the width below grade highways require. They have a tendency to “disrupt neighborhoods, destroy the fine grained texture of older areas, and wreak havoc with existing structures”. This accurately describes the situation in Nashville.

Tunnels are also described. They are of course expensive, but considering what might be preserved with their implementation, they may be viable. Community impact is good except for at portals or vents. Problems also arise when access to the city above is needed, such as ramps.

Essentially, this project is attempting to take a blow grade highway and convert it into a tunnel. Some of the issues Halprin describes will challenge this project. Ventilation and ramps are primary concerns. The section of interstate in my selected site includes three interchanges! Halprin also suggests addressing the entrance to the tunnel and even the experience while driving through the tunnel. Opportunities include bringing in natural light and artwork. Natural light will probably not be considered due to the desire of noise suppression above. Artwork, while interesting while riding on a subway, could cause distraction to a driver. Halprins Freeway park serves as a good example of a well addressed entrance.

The Freeway in the City

           

Topics include the location of the freeway in more detail than in Halprins Freeways. It is recommended that highways go around a city and not through it. This is the case in Nashville, but is the ring large enough? Does it allow for the urban core to grow? The urban core in Nashville has certainly changed much in the last fifty years and will continue to change. It is also recommended that freeways follow the street grid, which was for the most part the case in my area of study in Nashville.

Urban Open Spaces, Helen Woolley

            While much of the research from this book comes from Europe, this book is great for making that case that urban open space is a necessary element to urban living. It outlines its importance, from social, to economic, to ecological. It does this at a variety of scales, from domestic, to neighborhood, to civic. I think that this type of reading is important in that one of the justifications for building a deck park over an interstate is to increase open space in the city for the betterment of the entire community. This book helps emphasize the important role that parks play.

            In addition, the website at the Center for City Parks Excellence also serves as a good source for research concerning the role of city parks.

 

Urban Green

This book asks not, should we create more parks, but how should we. Harnik outlines the process of creating parks. I have spent time studying and designing parks but it is not until recently that I have begun to understand how much work actually goes into the creation of a city park. There is certainly a public and political process. Funding is also discussed. From there the book outlines different physical opportunities for urban parks such as brownfields, landfills, stream corridors, eliminated parking, etc. This is where I first learned about decking freeways and how widespread it is in the United States.


Superhighway - Superhoax