- WSDOT
We don’t need to see more parks in tender pastel colors, we don’t need grand boulevards, and we sure as hell don’t need hallowed “open spaces” in the designs for rebuilding the waterfront that will released tomorrow at Benaroya Hall, says Slogger Fnarf in a post up today on Seattle Transit Blog. We need a waterfront that’s built up with more stores, more piers, and more boats:
Show me instead how wide the storefronts are (25 feet max, with lots of 15s, 10s, even six feet wide spaces (a crepe window, a shoe repair shop). Show me where all the food carts are going to go, and tell me how you’re going to fill them with hungry young immigrants looking for a foothold in this economy. Show me where the sidewalk cafes go, and the street vendors. Make the streets as narrow as the law will allow, or amend the law to make them narrower, like Pioneer Square alleys. Pack it in, pack it in. I know a long narrow space like this is not ideal for the two greatest urban street activators — T junctions and Y junctions, but find a way. At the very least, promise that your hideous boulevard will be no wider than Western Avenue, which is the only downtown street platted to a civil dimension. We can work around it if the shop spaces are small enough; look at places like Pender Street in Vancouver, where even the ugliest concrete monstrosities are alive at the street level, because the shops are narrow (and thus numerous).
Read the whole thing.
The amusing thing is he still doesn’t get why Pioneer Square is doing so bad.
What a treat!
Will, why is Pioneer Square doing bad? Granted I’m only down there on game days and Saturday nights, when the place is jam packed.
The waterfront should emulate this place:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fells_Point…
So who can paint a water color in gray and climbing ivy of a hulking viaduct roofing block after block of flea market alternating with beer gardens with a restored trolley line whisking tourists from the the ID to the sculpture park.
Anyway, while I love Fnarf’s vision of the waterfront, the problem is that someone has to build the rolling avenues of roads and buildings and design them and then own them.
Also, are those pictures not supposed to be of Seattle?
Where is the fog, the drizzle, the rain, and what are those people doing acknowledging each other’s presence?
@1–badly. It’s an adverb modifying “doing”.
Fnarf is dead on right with this one. For the life of me, I can’t understand why the “surface street” option people are always flogging images that look like a Microsoft campus square on steroids. That’s not a city street–that’s a bland, uninspired office park, circa 2003.
It’s ironic that Will in Seattle seems to be pushing for a viaduct replacement that looks like where the billionaires work.
Im with Joe Szilagyi on this, with all the sporting events going on, Pioneer square are doing decent business. Seahawks and SoundersFC typically selling out, with the Sounders hosting alot more than 8 games per year.
The only problem I have with Fnarfs vision is that, where did all the parking go? I see alot of pedestrians, waterfront stores and no parking.
I would like a funicular railroad where the Hill-Climb is. I would also like arcades (think Rue du Rivoli or the Place des Voges). Vicious dogs could be let loose at night to chase out the derelicts. A Navy Pier would be nice too (not entirely successful but better than anything we have). Finally pedestrian taxis that move ALONG the waterfront would be nice. It’s a long way from Coleman Dock to the sculputure park. Put in a ferry with a few stops and say-price ticket. Don’t let the state ferry service run it though.
Wonderful.
And don’t forget to show us where the homeless people will sit. And the drug dealers. And the menacing clumps of teenagers. And the even more menacing clumps of fat guys in Seahawks jerseys. And the swarms of seagulls and pigeons covering everything in shit.
And this is Seattle, so where’s the fucking rain?
@8, parking takes care of itself. There’s plenty of parking. If you build the attractants strongly enough people will come to them. Also, bus and train. Basically, the answer to your question is the same as for the question, “millions of offices downtown, where the heck will they all park?”
Pioneer Square is struggling because the city keeps building barriers around it (going back 80 years), and stuffing non-paying uses into it, and the only kind of mitigation they can ever think of is banners hanging on lampposts.
Sounders fans are better than Seahawks fans, but only slightly. In terms of patronizing businesses there, sports fans tend to drive shoppers away, and they never shop themselves, except at bars. Bars are only a small part of the mix, and are trouble with they’re too highly concentrated. Especially sports-zone bars, which tend to be focused on draining as much booze down as many throats as possible in very short time periods, instead of a more natural flow throughout the day. The stadiums are quite possibly a net negative to Pioneer Square.
My own understanding of the problems of Pioneer Square may be limited, but it vastly outstrips that of Will in Seattle, who has by all appearances never been there, and has never said anything intelligible about it, or anything else. See the above for a classic example, which can be paraphrased as “you know nothing, I know everything, but I’m not telling, because I have no interest in the conversation, only in establishing that I’m the expert here, despite zero evidence that that is true”. That’s all he ever says.
Come on, Will, give: give us a paragraph on Pioneer Square. Just this once, try backing up what you say with some substance. Can’t do it, can you?
Agree with FNARF and #7, but I’ll probably lose both of’em with my suggestion that this is probably the most realistic model for developing the surface option. In other words—to get all 2003 on ya—just tear the viaduct down. 10 years from now it’ll be about as missed as the the R.H. Thomson Expressway.
@7 actually, I’m perfectly happy with either of the two cheaper solutions that meet freight capacity requirements – either the Surface Plus Transit (which is way more boulevard feel than the tunnel ever will be) or the Rebuilt Viaduct.
The problem is that there’s a finite amount of taxing authority, and by building the Billionaires’ Tunnel, you condemn the rest of the city to no sidewalks, no bike paths, no bridges, and no transit.
Decisions have consequences.
@11 I’m sure his expertise has something to do with once dating a waitress from J&M Cafe. It’s similar life experiences which have made him the scholar of Irish political history he is today.
Great post, i hadn’t considered this approach to city planning and find myself more than intrigued.
Pioneer Square – won’t be solved until they stop trying to shove residents in fancy towers next to it.
You know, not all of us can drop $8 million to get a new street like Gates just did next to Seattle Center today.
@14 no, but I have had fun there. Lots of fundraisers and parties.
Does anyone see a problem with open plazas and a city where it’s either raining or cold and cloudy most of the time?
This is why God invented Southcenter Mall.
Warm and cozy…with free parking.
open plazas are suck. im glad somebody is talking about 2 foot windows with hands exchanging food and money.
#19…
It reminds me of all the times I’ve gone to Wolfgang Puck’s at Benaroya Hall for dinner before the symphony. I end up sitting at one of the tables next to the windows on 3rd Avenue, where all manner of 21st century Dickens characters are begging, hustling or just waiting in New Balance tennis shoes for an Admiral Way bus to appear.
Half the time some kid is staring at me while I eat my turkey dinner. I want to just buy the kid a meal and hand it right to him through the glass. Hell, I want to run outside screaming and buy everyone on the block a turkey dinner. However, the police would probably just shoot me and I don’t have the kind of money.
fnarf has some excellent points. i also think there are a buttload of urban planners that should re-read camillo sitte. that image is a fucking abomination that only a romanian dictator would love.
southcenter mall is also an abomination a romanian dictator would love – as well as sheeple who like being told what to do/can’t think for themselves.
@18 – Urban shopping districts do compete with suburban malls like Southcenter—but as a believer, you should be able to recognize the work of Satan when you see it.
Will’s starting to remind me of the old MegaHAL conversation algorithm. Seriously, anyone else remember that?
@14, by “date” I assume you mean “cornered in a bar until she was able to make a break for it”.
WSDOT engineers shouldn’t be in charge of designing jack shit.
@7: because finely scaled, minutely detailed renderings are expensive and the surface option folks VOLUNTEER THEIR TIME.
@19 “However, the police would probably just shoot me and I don’t have the kind of money. “
That is the saddest thing I’ve read all day long.
good one, @20.
@25 but true.
btw, have Fnarf and will ever met in real life?
Yes.
I haunt his dreams.
@28, unforgettably, Fnarf has spoken of his direct experience of Will:
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archive…
Very amusing.
@31, not really. There’s nothing amusing about you, Will. You poison everything you come across.
I love boats. And shops. And action. I love when different modes intersect, like where the trains cross the ship canal near the locks. They should put more rail along the waterfront. I wish you could land planes there too.
Still, I’m glad to see the viaduct go. I think we will replace it with a windswept plaza, and a nightmare boulevard. It will suck, but it will also be fixable once the viaduct is gone. It’s not that hard to tear down a street and an empty plaza and put things into it.
The hard part is building transit so that all of these other good things become possible.
Slog: come for the intelligent commentary (from Fnarf) on urban planning. Stay for the hugely entertaining slap-fights between Fnarf and Will.
Almost needless to say, Fnarf is right: that rendering is an abomination. It’s weird how fans of open plazas never seem to think to pattern their designs on cities where the plazas actually work. I’m thinking Rome’s piazzas in particular: accessible only by foot, ringed by small businesses on the perimeter, most of which extend their seating footprint far into the square.
Slog quote of the year.
How about some bus express lanes on the waterfront for entry and escape from downtown to replace the easy entry and exit provided by the viaduct?
With the tunnel, express bus service, particularly service going to and from west seattle, will cease to exist and be forced to slog in bumper to bumper traffic on 1st Ave.
It doesn’t matter what people suggest or want. Whatever Seattle creates on the waterfront is going to suck. It’s a Seattle speciality: sucky urban spaces.
Please let me know when Fnarf and will plan on attending another Slog happy together. I’ll buy both of you drinks if I can witness this first-hand. I’ve been watching from the safety of my connection for too long now.
@38, not a fucking chance. I won’t go near the freak. Typically when we have met in the past, he has tried to maneuver himself in front of me and act like we’re having a conversation, but it never works. The one time I got trapped at a table with him I was subjected to one of his movie reviews in terms of length of showings and I thought I was going to die. I’ll never go to another Slog Happy if he’s there.
Fnarf, you must like the Fluevog store in Gastown that’s built between two other buildings, basically, a glassed in alley, such a cool space. (My son said, “wow, it must’ve been free since it’s not really a building…” Uh huh.) My dad is an architect, and he thinks all cities should be built like Rome, where no building is over 3 stories, basically, you can shout down to someone in the street. Not really practical in our dense urban centres, but it builds a sense of community that way, I think.
Slog-landers! I though I had/have problems! Until the waterfront is fixed, South Center will be a place to be avoided at all costs! Let’s focus here! Pierce County? South Center Mall?
A house divided against itself cannot stand!
(some people are asshole though!)
(s)
And for fuck’s sake, when you get all those food carts out there staffed by immigrants trying to get a foothold into this economy… let them sell something other than hot dogs and popcorn.
Fnarf and Will have never been seen at the same time by anyone but his mother…
#37
Just a comment on the original post: extremely smart and well written – it actually got me really excited about the potential of the waterfront. Seattle is surrounded by beautiful nature and the best way to appreciate and preserve that nature is by dense, dense contrast, not by some middle mind idea of what will attract suburbia – another yard for people with yards. Every single thing about this rendering, including the people (that’s who you chose as your models?!) achieves frighteningly full-throttle mediocrity.