Just a comment on MAPS 3 and the Canal Extension
July 11th, 2009This is, or at least was intended to be, just a comment on MAPS 3 and the canal extension. In fact, it wasn’t supposed to be posted here, but was originally going to be a quick three sentence contribution to a sinuous discussion over at OKC Central. For better or for worse, I am really amped up about all things OKC and MAPS 3. I actually laid awake in bed last night thinking through it all until the sun came up this morning. Though this post started as a response to NaptownEd’s comment below, the combination of a lot of thinking, sincere passion, and nervous enthusiasm spilled over into something much longer than intended…
NaptownEd said:
Here is an example that OKC can possibly replicate. Click on link to the Indy canal that is align with various development: http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=874282
Here are a few of the pictures to give you a sense of the Indy Canal Walk that Ed is referencing:
MY COMMENT(ARY):
That is a very nice canal. I like the variation in form and scale.
However, the execution of the urban fabric that borders the canal is very poor. Heavy facades, a lack of transparency on sides and entrances of buildings, concrete retaining walls, and vastly over-sized setbacks, create a place that is ill suited for an urban environment and offers very little utility for anything other than glorified recreational paths. I think the results speak for themselves.
Downtown Oklahoma City’s two most glaring weaknesses are the lack of pedestrians and lack of retail storefronts. The two go hand-in-hand; you cannot sustain one without the other. The City does not manage retail stores, but it has the power and the obligation when it comes to providing a public realm that attracts pedestrians.
A canal connection is a sad substitute for a well-designed street. I don’t mean this as a rebuke of the proposed canal extension, but am, affably I hope, calling into question the process(es) and underlying logic of many proposed MAPS 3 projects. In fact, as we move down the list you see that pedestrian concerns continue to take a back burner. A convention center will certainly detract from the pedestrian’s experience of the Central Park. This super-block structure will significantly damage the pedestrian realm, so it very important that it is placed accordingly. The boulevard, as designed, will, ironically enough, actually hinder pedestrian’s ability to walk from the Core to the Shore. Further, all boulevards, especially wide boulevards, are not well suited for retail and can can only hope to sustain retail in the very densest cities that have the ability to fill wider than average sidewalks with pedestrians.* These projects are not strategically focused on enhancing Oklahoma City’s quality of life.
But what if we wanted to strike at the heart of Downtown and Bricktown’s problems? MAPS 3 could employ a thoughtful strategy of interventions ALL intended to improve the pedestrian experience: adding streetcars, improving public spaces, planting street trees, widening sidewalks, and more. MAPS 3 could boost both Downtown and Bricktown by increasing the number of pedestrians and unleash a number of opportunities for retail currently lying dormant within the fabric of the city. Joining with the MAPS 3 investments, we could step up efforts to build out undeveloped and surface parking lots, which would contribute greatly to the pedestrian experience while increasing density. Activating the city we have today with people and retail would do more to enhance the city than any project or combination of projects that has been proposed to date.
July 14th, 2009 at 1:19 am
This is a really good post, except that I somewhat disagree on your assessment of the Indy Canal. I was sitting on the fence about the boulevard proposal till I read this. I think that OKC’s ability to even make good use of such a boulevard, realistically, is the pivotal turning point in the debate where you have to look back at how detrimental it could be, and realize it just isn’t worth it.
July 14th, 2009 at 11:24 am
I agree with you. The convention center should be south of bricktown where the mill is currently and the hotels moved south of the Ford Center, and then the park could be connected to the Myriad Gardens. The continuous park will help cool the city and add more of an ecosystem than their proposed parks split by hotels.
The convention center location should be thought of more in detail than it is. The location south of Bricktown will open up space along the park for mixed use commerical/residential use. The convention center will also allow for people to walk to the “new” mixed use or bricktown. There are so many options that need to be discussed before this is voted on.
I do agree that street cars will unite the city more and create economic development. Look at what the light rail has done in Salt Lake City, and the street cars in Portland are incredible. The businesses along the streetcars in Portland subsidized the route and it is free for about 75% of the route downtown. There are many advertising opportunities on the streetcars that could make it more economically feasible long term.
I do like the canal extension, I just don’t think that it should be in MAPS 3. It could be paid for in TIF money like the small extension to Reno. It should grow as the city grows. Although the new growth should save room for a proposed route for the canal.
Maps 3 should be Street Cars #1 (30%), Convention Center #2 (25%), the central park (25%) consisting of one park not 5 separate parks, and 20% on updating existing parks like Will Rogers Park.
July 14th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
NR – Thanks. I think you probably frame it well, “it is just not worth it.” I think there are some changes that need to happen to some of the plan, but with a few tweaks it could still be great for OKC.
By the way, what did I say about the Indy Canal that you disagree with. Just curious because I respect you thoughts and ideas.
Curt – great ideas. Absolutely on target. The extended Central Park joining the Myriad is clearly the superior configuration, as long as, you do not take the Boulevard as a given. The convention hotel and mixed-used on the east side of the park connected (under- ground and rail) to the Convention Center on the Mill site would add vitality to the park while created new connections across the tracks and to Bricktown. AND, streetcar should absolutely be seen as a way to drive development.
Good stuff. Thank you.
July 15th, 2009 at 2:46 am
Well, the Indy Canal Walk, when I saw it in person, is actually very well suited for an urban environment. It is what the Bricktown Canal could become if it was only surrounded by Lower Bricktown. As time passed infill happens, but the thing is completely ruined by what you said, heavy facades and a small area in the middle of buildings that don’t completely fit in. The part of your assessment that I disagree with is that the heavy facades and unsuitable development actually only describes a small portion of it, however you’re very correct in that the results powerfully speak for themselves. The canal is dead, but it is still very nice to walk along.
Ironically, I just wrote a lot about comparing canals the other day (in response to something that stirred my mind on SkyscraperCity), which was written in a hurry and not very academically.
http://downtownontherange.blogspot.com/2009/07/canals-galore.html
The main point to sum up is that in my opinion Indy has one of the most evolved downtowns in the nation. Top 10 at least. The core is compact, with so many important assets. It’s so jampacked with monuments and hotels and mega convention centers and stadiums that you hardly even notice the canal because it is separate from all of that and it isn’t the most utilized space because some crappy development in one spot hurt it a lot.
July 15th, 2009 at 6:19 am
Okay, I see where you are coming from. I don’t know Indy very well and should have been more clear that I intended to critique just the urban fabric directly lining the canal, And I like the post on canals. Thanks for putting that together.
July 19th, 2009 at 11:53 am
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July 19th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
Excellent post, Blair. You nailed it. I’m glad you couldn’t sleep that night!
July 20th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
I think that the city thinks that if the canal is extended throughout the city, development will magically occur along it – similar to what has happened in Bricktown. The canal is short sighted and doesn’t deal with OKC’s biggest problem, which is the reliance on cars. You can then open up a whole new can of worms because city codes require so many parking spots based on building occupancy. The codes in the city suck.
I live 1 1/2 miles from downtown OKC, but I still have to drive to get there, instead of hopping on a train or a bus (better bus system would be brilliant). Smart blog.
July 20th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Definitely a dependence on cars that too greatly determines development downtown. The truth is, much of it is just a mindset from another era. Many transportation engineers were taught to only worry about moving cars without any consideration for its effects on the public realm and the city as a whole.
On the parking requirements issue, I believe that the municipal code has been amended to waive parking requirements downtown. So while there are no doubt places where are code could be improved, the city deserves some credit for taking a proactive stance on parking requirements.
July 20th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
The Indy Canal is and has been a dead zone since its most recent “upgrade”. Notice the people and activity in the pictures posted….not. The Bricktown canal is one of the most successful man-made waterways/perdestrian walk ways in the country. Parks attract tree huggers and are neither traffic generators nor well attended. You have a great product going, expand upon it. You could not afford to continue the operating expense of a comprehensive fixed path transit system for more than a year. Capital for transit is easy. Operating money is the killer. And OKC lacks another ingredient necessary for successful transit:traffic. It may be a popular buzz word for the politicians, but will be a financial killer.
July 28th, 2009 at 9:27 pm
The purpose of my posting was to reference some value-added photos of Indy’s canal that could ‘possibly’ be a potential opportunities for Bricktown (i.e. housing, park, zoo and museums), which are all present on the Indy canal. It is very disappointing that many comments on this web site only wanted to view a few selected photos to promptly draw their opinion without doing some due dilligence of their part.
July 28th, 2009 at 11:47 pm
Hey NaptownEd,
I did not mean to denigrate the Indy Canal in anyway. In truth, your link to the pictures of the Indy Canal was merely the jumping off point for a stream of thoughts focused on Oklahoma City’s continued failure to get urbanity right. We try to fix our urban fabric with large projects – like canals – but have, as of yet, been unable to do the small things with mundane public works and development oversight that create the types of urban places people most enjoy.
I really do appreciate you posting the pictures of the canal. Again, it is a very nice canal. I only hope that Oklahoma City will keep downtown focused on creating excellent urbanity. If a canal is the best way to do that, then it works for me.
June 21st, 2010 at 8:56 am
I agree with Curt’s observations, too – the Convention Center should be at the cotton compress site, with a grand view to the south and southeast. The park should spread, amoeba-like, throughout Core to Shore, connecting Wheeler Park to a Central Park (great lawn), north to the Myriad Gardens and east to the boathouse district. Also, bring the canal from it’s southern turnabout/terminus west, along today’s 5th or 6th streets, through an extension of the park. The canal (imagine a large backwards “C” shape) could include a dock on the south side of the convention center, then under the tracks/Shields, and another dock on the south side of the main convention hotel south of the Ford Center. (The hotel would have an extension of the park to the west of it, along with trolley access). The view from the convention center south, then, would have in the foreground a green extension of the park and canal, followed by the Union Pacific tracks, I-40, and the Boathouse and river walkway beyond. Visitors to the Central Park would be able to view the Land Run statues by foot or by boat, on their way to and from Bricktown. Downtown/C2S residents could jog alongside or through the park, or could walk or bicycle or take the trolley or water taxi to various destinations.
Doug Loudenback has noted that the deed to Wheeler Park requires it to be used as a public park in perpetuity. Might as well integrate it into the new park plans for Core to Shore, and put condos on the bluff overlooking it, along Shartel. Great view to the southwest.
The transit station should be a reconstruction of the elevated BNSF tracks, with moving sidewalks within like those used at airports to move people around. Come in by rail, take an escalator down, then be able to move in climate-controlled comfort anywhere between Kerr and, say, around S 4th or 5th without taking up a square inch of land that can be otherwise developed. Connect it underground to the Santa Fe parking garage and the Cox Center, both of which have lower levels and would provide a place to park to access the rail lines and trolley system.
Great site! Thanks!
April 22nd, 2013 at 7:13 am
Breast Augmentation…
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