Connectivity

My thesis statement is as follows. “Are parks built over highways successful in connecting severed neighborhoods, reducing noise and increasing urban open space?”  A large part of this project concerns connectivity. What is connectivity? I have read about, “connecting the urban grid”. Precedence studies like the recently named Klyde Warren Park in Dallas literally provide pedestrian access along all borders. It is not hindered by interstate ramps. These ramps prevent both street and pedestrian connections. As discussed before, pedestrian entrance to each section is limited to the corners along the cross streets. Section IV is the only exception to this.

So if this park does not “reconnect the urban fabric” then what is it reconnecting? Is it simply making the narrow sidewalks flanking the cross streets over the interstate safer and more pleasurable? I do believe that wider sidewalks and separation from vehicular traffic will be a positive improvement, but I think there is more here. I think connectivity goes further than reconnecting roads and providing pedestrian access over the interstate.

The area between midtown and downtown, the area around the interstate, is void. Midtown is active. Downtown is active. The Gulch is becoming more active. In between there is nothing. Perhaps connectivity is about taking a part of town that will continue to be void due to the presence of the interstate and making it usable. I think it’s more about filling a void in Nashville than it is about a physical connection like a bridge. This park, by covering the interstate and providing the open space that is necessary to make urban living truly attractive, will fill the void and activate an entire part of town.