Showing posts with label Florida. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Florida. Show all posts
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Thursday, April 14, 2011
Enforcement of Incomplete Streets is Unsustainable and Ineffective
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It seems like every time a cyclist or pedestrian is killed or seriously injured on the mean and incomplete streets of Miami the knee-jerk reaction by our politicians is more enforcement. This happened on the Rickenbacker Causeway after Christoph LeCanne was killed a year ago. Miami Dade Police enforcement increased significantly after cyclists pressured County Commissioner Gimenez to do more. Enforcement lasted about two months.
This same old sold song and dance also took place on Brickell Avenue a few months ago. After residents and business rallied for a more pedestrian-friendly Brickell Avenue, Commissioner Sarnoff was quick to ask for additional enforcement on Brickell Avenue in order to address speeding on this poorly designed road. The crackdown by the Miami Police Department lasted about a month. The FDOT paid lip service by reducing the speed limit by a paltry 5 mph; still excessive for a road that cuts through the heart of Florida’s most densely populated neighborhood. The combined actions of the FDOT and Commissioner Sarnoff seemed to calm some of the outrage, but the FDOT did nothing to address to actual design speed of the roadway. Even with a 5 mph reduction of the speed limit drivers will continue to speed until the actual design speed of Brickell Avenue is addressed. Enforcement is basically fruitless.
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| Brickell Avenue, photo by Fabio - Miami |
An Architectural Treasure: Miami’s Art Deco District
Minimum Knowledge about Minimum Parking Requirements
New Urbanism, Smart Growth, & Andres Duany: A Critique From Suburbia
Codifying New Urbanism
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Transitography 101: The Portland Metro – A Case Study on Regional Government
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As Miami politicians struggle with decisions like whether to fund the area’s second commuter rail line or how to provide adequate bicycle infrastructure, it may be worthwhile to look at how other American cities approach the challenges related to regional transportation planning and decision-making.
The Portland Area Metro has emerged as a model for sustainable regional governance as it pursues aggressive reductions in vehicle miles traveled, by drastically expanding its bikeway network, making investments in mass transit and encouraging transit oriented development. These decisions are made by a regional governing body: Metro, “an elected regional government, serving more than 1.5 million residents in Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties and the 25 cities in the Portland region.”
Metro is the agency responsible for planning the region’s five light rail lines (52.4 miles), a commuter rail line (14.7 miles), a 651 bus fleet, an aerial tram, and, since 2009, the only American streetcar system with cars made in the USA. The entire system logs an estimated 350,000 weekday rides.
Comparatively, Miami-Dade County has a population of 2.5 million residents, has a heavy rail line (22.4 miles), a downtown people mover (4.4 miles), a strained fleet of 893 buses, and one ailing commuter rail line (70.9 miles) - representing just over 400,000 daily rides, and run by competing agencies.
Metro’s transit expansion is only part of its successful mode shift. The region has seen the number trips made by bike double since 1997 . Approximately six percent of Portland commuters now take their bikes to work, the highest percentage in America and about 10 times the national average.
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| Trolley in Portland, photo by Slideshow Bruce |
more posts about public transit in the US:
Light Rail, Primary Arterial Transport
Rapid Transit Closer to Realization as Honolulu’s Rail Project Breaks Ground
High speed rail in Texas: options
Saturday, January 8, 2011
An Architectural Treasure: Miami’s Art Deco District
by Alexandra Davin
Last week, the 2010 American Institute of Architects, or AIA, National Convention was hosted in Miami, FL. Thousands migrated to the eclectic city for the nation’s largest annual gathering of design professionals. These visitors not only experienced the Southern Florida heat, but were also engulfed in a world of decorative arts—Miami boasts one of the world’s best kept Art Deco regions. Could there be a more perfect meeting place for thousands of architecture-lovers?
Personally, Miami’s Art Deco District elicits embarrassment in my mind, though my feelings are in no way due to the region itself. This humiliation stems from an experience of total tourism. A few years ago, my family took a cruise departing from the Port of Miami and it happened that we had four hours of down time before we could board the ship. My interior designer and “lover of all things architecture” mother created her perfect plan to fill the layover—a walking tour of the Art Deco region.
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| Miami Art Deco District, image by bollilaurent |
more posts about Florida:
Minimum Knowledge about Minimum Parking Requirements
Codifying New Urbanism
New Urbanism, Smart Growth, & Andres Duany: A Critique From Suburbia
Monday, July 26, 2010
Minimum Knowledge about Minimum Parking Requirements
by Victoria Broadus
22 July, 2010
WHAT THEY ARE
Minimum parking requirements require developers to construct a minimum number of parking spots, depending on the zone and type of development — business or residential, for instance. As Michael Lewyn points out, for new residential developments in Jacksonville, Florida, developers must provide 1.75 parking spaces per one-bedroom apartment, even though 16 percent of Jacksonville renters don’t even own one car. In New York City’s case, in some lower-density zones like Staten Island — and even parts of the Bronx — parking space requirements reach up to two spaces per residential unit.
WHAT THEY DO
Here’s why minimum parking requirements need to be “turned on their heads” and evolve into maximum parking limits for new developments:
Friday, May 21, 2010
New Urbanism on the Emerald Coast
By Karrie Rose
New Urbanism started in the 1980s on Florida's Emerald Coast basically as an attempt to counter the impersonal, wasteful environment that is suburban sprawl. The nostalgic environment that it attempts to replicate is one where the car is not king, people know their neighbours, and where the environment makes the resident feel at home.
Codifying New Urbanism
By Buck Abbey, ASLA, LASN associate editor for ordinances
Landscape Standards
One of the really great things about new urbanism is the zoning philosophy provides additional design standards for landscape architects. In a field where design is often “as you want it,” it is wonderful to have specific standards that many can agree to as a theoretical basis for landscape architecture design.
In the years following the creation of Seaside, Florida in 1981 (see the March 2007 column), many books, columns and articles have been published about new urbanism and its essential definition.
New urbanism stresses community design and comprehensive planning from the regional scale to the disposition of the downtown lot. New urbanism principles seek to promote social togetherness, urban livability, reinvestment in the city center and the abatement of urban sprawl. It also seeks to decrease separation of land uses based upon race, income, automobile usage and environmental deterioration—all symptoms of poor land use planning.
Friday, May 7, 2010
New Urbanism, Smart Growth, & Andres Duany: A Critique From Suburbia
By Rick Harrison, 04.05.2010
In 1998 Hollywood introduced us to a new star when it released The Truman Show, shot on location at Seaside in Florida. No I’m not talking about Jim Carrey, Laura Linney or Ed Harris. I'm talking about none other than Andres Duany.
A few months ago, I stayed at the magnificent WaterColor Inn, which is in the neighborhood adjacent to Seaside. Watercolor is closer in feel to a suburban development's sense of space (more open), but WaterColor’s Town Center doesn't offer a large choice of restaurants, so Seaside serves as a destination. Other than a sign marking the border, one does not immediately feel as if Seaside and WaterColor are two very different developments.
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