The Naked City Blog

The city, as part of its study of I-277 (the famous “freeway cap”) study, conducted a survey of motorists, pedestrians and bicyclists who use uptown. A synopsis of the results is part of this PowerPoint presentation, which was given last Monday. If you can follow that link, the PowerPoint contains a drawing (above) of one possibility for what South Tryon might look like in years to come. The artist was Ed DeLara of the consulting firm HNTB, which conducted the design workshop pro-bono.

Here are some highlights from the survey results.

From motorists:
Commuters and visitors think signs that list more exits and the distances to them, and better lighting on signs, would improve I-277. They think more signs directing drivers to I-277 access streets are needed.
Other concerns commonly voiced by commuters and visitors:

• Difficulty merging onto and across I-277 to reach their exit.
• Fast and aggressive driving on I-277
• Inadequate signage to alert drivers to when and where their exit is.
• It’s not wide enough for a “breakdown lane” to get fender-benders and breakdowns out of traffic.
• Too dark, poor visibility on several stretches of I-277 at night.
• Poor driving conditions in the rain; standing water.
• Trash and litter.

From pedestrians:

• The chief complaints are the prevalence of jaywalking and the aggressiveness of uptown drivers who speed through intersections and make turns into pedestrian crosswalks.
• Also, the sidewalks across I-277 at Tryon and College are not perceived as pedestrian-friendly. Sidewalks, particularly on College, are narrower and traffic moves faster than in the center of the city. There was also a comment that these sidewalks are dirtier and more littered.
• Darkness and poor visibility under the I-277 overpasses.

From bicyclists:

• Bikers’ chief concern is being visible to drivers who are driving fast and aggressively, often distracted by cell phone conversation.
• Concern over the speed with which drivers exit onto streets such as South Boulevard and College from the right, where the cyclists are riding.
• Darkness and poor visibility under the I-277 overpasses. (Gee, anyone notice a pattern?)

Some very quick reactions to a couple of comments from previous posts:

“Cato,” a regular reader, was talking about how some downtown streets are great, but others aren’t very exciting. Yes, they have sidewalks, but . . . He says, “The Wachovia Securities stock ticker board at the corner of College & MLK could have been a minor landmark, but it’s in such a dead zone practically no one sees it.”

Commenting on an earlier posting, “Anonymous” asked: How are you defining “pedestrian friendly? My neighborhood of Spring Valley is very pedestrian friendly where you could walk continuously for several miles without the bother of busy intersections, plenty of sidewalk and wide streets for bikes, jogging strollers, etc.”

I define pedestrian-friendly as having good sidewalks that are wide enough for several people at a time, including those with strollers, and having intersections designed so they don’t terrify you if you have to cross. They have relatively short blocks so you can get somewhere without going too far out of your way. They have destinations, so you’re not walking aimlessly only for exercise (though I like to walk for exercise).

In my definition, really pedestrian friendly streets need something interesting to look at. Different people think different things are interesting, of course. I like to look at people’s gardens, landscaping and big old trees. This bores my husband something terrible. He likes store windows, sidewalk cafes and lots of people on the sidewalk.

But most everyone can agree, I think, that surface parking lots, parking garage entrances, loading docks and long blank walls are not pedestrian friendly. Those are, as Cato suggests, “dead zones.”

How do you avoid them? Simple (if not easy). Encase parking garages in ground-floor retail, like Seventh Street Station. Put surface parking lots behind buildings.

I like to walk uptown, and some streets are quite comfortable for pedestrians: E.g., Tryon Street. Others are awful: College Street between Trade and Fourth, or Fourth Street between Church and Poplar.

Got nominations for great pedestrian streets? Or horrific ones?

Don’t you love this? Walkable Charlotte, eh?

This particular barrier to pedestrians is on Brevard Street, between Fourth and Third streets, a half a block from the Transportation Center — a spot to which thousands of people walk daily.

Last time I asked about it, several years ago, someone at either CDOT or the city planning office told me they were waiting for that property to develop and when it did, they’d make sure the sidewalk got built. That’s been several years. Guess they’re still waiting. I’ll see what interim CDOT chief Danny Pleasant has to say.

And to be fair, I’ll say that CDOT has improved dramatically in its attention to pedestrian comforts, and that uptown Charlotte is, square foot for square foot, the largest pedestrian friendly site in the city. Does anyone know of any others that would compete for that distinction?

City Council member James “Smuggie” Mitchell will be attending the Republican National Convention next month in St. Paul, Minn. Say what? Mitchell is a lifelong Democrat.

He’s also going to the Democratic convention in Denver later this month. Mitchell will attend both conventions as president of the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials, a nonpartisan group that’s part of the National League of Cities.

“Sometimes duty calls,” he told me. And he pointed out that the top issues for cities at the moment — foreclosures and crime — aren’t partisan issues anyway.

Talking about whether to cap I-277 uptown and put something atop it, one commenter today (Anonymous 3:48 p.m.) said-

“Mary, you forgot to mention the supermarket and hotel in Newton that traverse the Mass Pike as you drive into Beantown. This stuff makes sense guys.”

I appreciate the thought, but that hotel and grocery (Shaw’s, I think) look like rather awful places to hang out, I have to say. I much prefered the grassy lawn between Harvard’s Science Center and the gates of Harvard Yard and the Memorial Hall. That grassy lawn was a cap over a high-volume street in Cambridge.

In other words, design and location matter, too.

Note today’s article on the issue by Clay Barbour. It shows which developer is buying property where along tht section of I-277. I’d link to it, but it doesn’t seem to be appearing anywhere on CharlotteObserver.com that I can find. You’ll have to dig up the on-paper newspaper. Note, there’s a cool map with the printed story.

All is takes, you see, is for a developer to be interested, and suddenly the city decides it’s interested, too. At least, that’s how it might look to a cynic. (Moi? Mais, non!)

It’s been more than 10 years since the idea was first proposed to cap I-277 and put a park there. It’s been eight years since it was included in the Center City 2010 plan.

Next week, the city’s transportation department will take a serious look at the possibilities. It’s part of a four-day design workshop to look at I-277 and its interchanges from Mint Street to Kenilworth. The freeway cap is sure to come up, I’m told.

Here’s a tidbit that might be more than coincidental: Developer Afshin Ghazi of the EpiCentre has bought a spot of land uptown at Tryon and Morehead, overlooking the I-277 gulch. He’s a smart guy and he knows that in other cities, freeways have been capped and developable land created. Columbus, Ohio, put a retail development above a freeway. In Boston the Copley Place shopping mall sits over the Mass Pike. And Boston’s famous Big Dig (above) is really a freeway that’s topped with a park. Of course, in Charlotte we wouldn’t have to do that expensive digging part.

The caps themselves aren’t all that expensive — at least, not in the relative terms of massive freeway construction budgets. But putting development on a cap would boost city revenues. It will be interesting to see whether the original idea for a park survives.

Also, I hear that the consultants who’ll do the workshop, HNTB, have been hired in Kansas City to help explore a freeway cap there.

Read my Saturday column in the Observer — here’s a link to the Opinion page for CharlotteObserver.com — and I’ll tell you more about what’s happening.

Ted Alexander of Preservation North Carolina phoned Thursday to report that two historic houses in Dilworth had been sold to an owner who’ll preserve them.

Ted left a voice mail and he’s now out of the country, so I don’t have publication-worthy confirmation on the buyer’s name. He said the closing was Wednesday. The houses, at 329 E. Worthington Ave. and 1818 Euclid Ave., had been up for sale by an investor.

As I wrote in a column last year, the zoning was 22 units an acre, and it was likely the two lots could have been packaged, the houses demolished, and apartments or condos built.

The houses were modest, both dating to the early 20th century and, as PNC President Myrick Howard put it, help tell the story of Dilworth, a neighborhood designed with homes for the wealthy, the middle class and workers. “If all the worker parts are lost,” he said, “the story’s lost.”

As I reported last year, other cities such as Raleigh, protect their historic districts better, by not allowing large-sized additions to small houses if they’re out of keeping with the scale of the neighborhood. Charlotte, you’ll not be surprised to learn, does not. The fabric of Dilworth, a local historic district, is being changed by steroid-sized expansions. At least these two modest houses will survive to convey to future generations what the neighborhood used to be like: a place for people of high, middle and lower incomes.

PNC stepped in and bought the houses. They resold them with protective convenants in place to preserve them.

At last, vindication.

While researching totally other topics, I found this piece in Sunday’s New York Times magazine addressing at length the question of whether it’s OK to zoom to the front of the vacant lane when a merge looms, and the other lanes are full of drivers patiently waiting their turn.

Remember the piece I did last month, “A contrarian look at lane-merging”? It hit a nerve, with most people firmly on the side of those who wait patiently in line. You’ll note I didn’t say I do this. I don’t want people shooting me the finger, or maybe bullets. I just said it would be more efficient if people just did alternate merging.

The scientists who study that sort of thing — and amazingly, there are many — appear to conclude that if the world were full of perfectly behaved drivers, it would be more efficient if everyone used all the lanes possible, but left enough space in front so the mergers could merge without anyone having to stop.

This will happen, of course, about the time that all our kids do their homework with no nagging, bluebirds sing in the meadows all day and everyone learns the proper use of it’s versus its.

Nope, not Charlotte. Atlanta. The New York Times tells us Atlanta’s “defender of trees” got the ax. Many people speculate it’s because he’s more vigorous about citing developers for tree-cutting infractions than the other people in his office.

This got my attention: “Builders must pay hundreds of dollars for every tree they uproot, even with the city’s permission. … The penalty for violators is far heftier: One developer was recently fined $24,000 for illegal tree clearance, and Tyler Perry, the movie actor and director, was penalized $177,000 for unauthorized deforestation on his property.”

Atlanta’s fired arborist said he had issued 70 citations for illegal tree removal this year, while the five other arborists in his division issued a total of 29 citations. This does not sound like Charlotte, does it?

I called Laura Brewer, Charlotte’s senior urban forestry specialist. Charlotte’s tree ordinance doesn’t make builders pay if they uproot trees except for city-owned trees in city right-of-way. Even then, unless it’s a big tree they’re usually allowed to plant a replacement tree as compensation. That’s one reason for the slow loss in the city’s tree canopy.

As far as private development, Charlotte’s ordinance protects only a few of the trees on private development. On single-family developments a 10 percent tree save is required, although a developer can plant new trees instead of saving existing ones. On commercial development, only the trees in the setback must be saved, if they’re 8 inches or larger in diameter.

I asked Brewer if the city had fined any tree ordinance violators in the past year. “I don’t believe we have.” The city would rather have trees than fines, she said: “Usually, what we’ve done in the past is require mitigation.”

She said a new ordinance is being proposed that would require commercial developers to save 15 percent of the trees on site, rather than those in the setback.

A study in 2003 by American Forests found the total acreage of trees in Charlotte fell almost in half between 1984 and 2003, from 63,000 to 33,000.