Posts tagged with walkability

Just a comment on MAPS 3 and the Canal Extension

July 11th, 2009

This 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:


indy_canal_01

indy_canal_02



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.

Indianapolis Canal

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.

canal_extension_concept

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.

*This is due to the fact that a narrower street allows for shoppers to connect visually with stores on both sides of the street, and cross back and forth relatively quickly.  The distance and visual disconnectedness of a wide boulevard makes it necessary for stores to rely on the foot traffic supplied by only one side of the street, possible only if the sidewalks carry substantial pedestrian traffic.

Read Jeff Speck’s OKC Walkability Report

June 29th, 2009

If you haven’t already, check out Jeff Speck’s recommendations for downtown Oklahoma City. This report will be at the center of much discussion over the next few years and I think it is important for everyone interested in downtown to become familiar with the concepts – whether you agree with his recommendations or not. I have uploaded it so that you can view it online (just click below) without having to download it, or if you prefer to download it, that option is available as well.




Click here to download the report in .pdf

Analyzing Pedestrian Movement in the Public Realm

February 24th, 2009

Pedestrian path movement can be analyzed using video reworked with computer animation software.

More often than not, cars follow the paths prescribed by traffic engineers but pedestrians are a different story.  Many pedestrians venture outside the lines, whether to save time, energy, or take a route for which a path is not provided.  In some cases, these improvised pedestrian routes can be identified by the dirt path that develops through repeated use – this usually a clear sign that there is a problem with the form and paths provided.  But in most cases, we fail to sufficiently understand pedestrian behavior and design in ways that exhibit this lack of understanding.

That said, there are a number of ways in which this gap in the analysis can be filled.  I previously mentioned the possibilities of new gps-enabled handheld phones, which would be suitable for a downtown scale route and origin-destination analysis.  Also, Jan Gehl has a done a lot of work studying pedestrian behavior and developed a process that utilizes teams manually recording a number of important behavior factors.  And here (above image) is one method of tracking pedestrian movement – from pedestrianlevitation.net – that uses video reworked with computer animation software.

It is hard to study pedestrian behavior in cities without an ample supply of pedestrians.  But it is a historic lack of understanding and adequate attention that has created this dilemma.  The more attention we give to an analysis of pedestrians and the way they interact with the city, the more appropriate our design solutions will be, resulting in an increase in pedestrian users over time.

Right now there is very little (i.e. zero) analysis of this type taking place in Oklahoma City.  This is unfortunate but expected from a city that long ago decided to focus only on mobility as it relates to automobiles.  Hopefully, public works will begin to treat pedestrian issues like they matter, developing a process for analyzing circulation at least within active areas where pedestrian-friendliness is a stated priority (e.g. Downtown and Bricktown).  It might even be interesting to do “traffic counts” in the Underground to see how many pedestrians we are keeping off the streets.

But until that happens we can do some rudimentary analysis by identifying where pedestrian circulation problems are shown to exists – dirt paths.  So does anyone know of any dirt paths in Downtown or Bricktown?  I can think of a few, but am hoping you all can chime in with some examples I don’t know.

Enrique Peñalosa on Good Cities

February 6th, 2009

I just attended a lecture series featuring Enrique Peñalosa, a former Mayor of Bogotá, Colombia.  He is considered a visionary for his work in Bogotá that included major enhancements to quality of life through investments in bike/pedestrian infrastructure, construction of a groundbreaking bus rapid transit system (BRT) and introduction of unique community events like Ciclovia.

It was an enthusiastic presentation and I was fairly intrigued by a number of his ideas.  Certainly there are contextual differences between Colombia and the United States that make some of what he has accomplished difficult to apply here, but a number of his principles seem universal and I think they are worth sharing.  These notes are not all exact quotes, but are a mix of quotes and paraphrasing.

What is a Good City?

Quoted Jan Gehl, “A Good City is one where people want to be out of their houses!”

A Good City:

  • is not malls, but public space and parks.
  • has places for people to walk and to be with other people.
  • gives people needed spaces to play
  • does not make some people feel inferior

A Good City looks out for the most vulnerable citizens: elderly, children, disabled.  He recommended that public officials should be required to navigate the city one day a year in a wheel chair.

A child on a bicycle can go safely anywhere in the Good City!

Cars = Monsters? No, but…

While cars are great thing and provide a great service, the poor design of our cities has turned them into monsters.  If you say to a child, “Watch out, a car is coming.” They will likely jump out of fright.  And for good reason: over 200,000 children are killed each year by automobiles. The answer is not more separated infrastructure for cars, but integrated infrastructure that values all persons equally independent of their mode of travel.

How to Measure of a Proposed Intervention: Does IT make the city more pleasant to walk in?

Comparison of space usage by cars, buses, and bikes.  Münster, Germany was one city mentioned by the Mayor that provides excellent bike infrastructure.

On Public Spaces: sidewalks, parks, bike lanes, etc

Sidewalks are not relatives of streets – they are not paths simply for moving.  Sidewalks are more closely related to parks and plazas.  They are places to play and congregate.

The allocation of space between streets and sidewalk for any given area should be based on maximizing happiness.

When shopping malls replace public space it is the result of a sick city with poorly performing public spaces.  People are not stupid, they go to the shopping malls because it offers a pedestrian environment they can’t find anywhere else.

Human like hard surfaces.  We have to understand that there are places for parks and places for plazas.  Ultimately cities are a human habitat and sometimes hard surfaces are appropriate.

Synthetic soccer fields are better at reducing crime in poor neighborhoods than extra police stations.  If you don’t provide space for teens to play, then they will find other things to do with their time.

With limited resources, there are always questions as to what comes first.  For instance, when we have to decide between paving a street or installing a skate park, we will choose to build the skate park.  Cars will be okay on the mud roads, but the skate park enhances the quality of life to a greater degree per dollar spent.

Adding nice bike lanes not only makes biking easier, but changes the social status of bicyclist by sending a signal to everyone that they are important.

Parking is not a constitutional right!

Twenty percent of Bogotá car-owners ride public transportation to work.

Transport and Bus Rapid Transit

You CANNOT design transport without first knowing the type of city you want!  Transport is a political decision: How much space do we want to give to cars and how much to people?  Engineers will tell you how many cars can travel on a given road, but you have to decide as a community how many cars you want to have.  If they made more space for cars in New York City or London, there would be more cars.  So ultimately it boils down to politics and the will of the community.

To have a good BRT system you should plan on spending between $8 – 16 million per mile.

Built Form

Suburbs provide something urban areas need: good schools, open space, etc.

The best density that is most often seen throughout the world is buildings between four and six stories tall.


Coming Up Next Week

Okay, I know the notes are a little disorganized, but I thought they were worth posting.  I will have the next section on Re-visioning the Chamber Proposal up by Monday.  We will take a look at the current and historical context of the site and surrounding areas.  We are going to work through this “re-visioning” process one step at a time. It may go a bit slow at first, but I think it will provide a better solution in the end.

Living a Walkable Lifestyle in OKC

January 12th, 2009

Greg Cerveny at urbanmonarch.com emailed today and had this to say:

I’m looking for the pedestrian friendly neighborhoods of OKC.  Something with grocery stores, entertainment, and dining within walking distance.  Any suggestions for places to start?

Initially, I though, “Dang, what am I supposed to tell this guy?.”  I mean, surely we have something to offer, but it is not immediately clear which neighborhood can really provide all of this within close walking distance.  But after thinking through it for a little while, I sent him back this list as my recommendations for the best pedestrian friendly neighborhoods in Oklahoma City.  It definitely not meant to be a comprehensive list (though sadly it might be), but the good news is that nearly every neighborhood I considered is trending towards a more pedestrian friendly future.


PEDESTRIAN FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOODS IN OKC


  1. Mesta Park / Heritage Hills / Winans (between NW 13th on south and 23rd on north; Classen Blvd east to Robinson) – These are probably the most walkable neighborhoods.  Midtown is directly south across 13th street providing a growing selection of restaurants and bars.  There is a Homeland at Western and 18th that while not as yuppie-ready as a Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s, does handle most of your grocery needs.  Also, there is a solid group of restaurant and retail establishments along 23rd street to the north, including: a just opened market named Market C (owned by the Cheever’s restaurant group) with great take-home dinner options and Cuppie’s and Joe, a new cupcake and coffee shop with outstanding cupcakes.  Plus, I would say that the long-term prospects for both Midtown and 23rd Street are very good.
  2. Jefferson Park / The Paseo / Sparrow Park (directly north of 23rd Street) – The restaurants and galleries of the Paseo along with the aforementioned energy of 23rd make a walkable lifestyle a real possibility here.  You will find smaller houses, better values, great parks, and still tons of untapped potential.  Most grocery runs will require a trip in the car, or at least a short bike ride; but the previously mentioned Market C and a few corner convenience stores may make the necessary trips few and far between.
  3. Midtown – There lots of new energy and new restaurants, including: McNellie’s Irish Pub, Irma’s Burgers, 1492, Café de Brazil, and Prairie Thunder Bakery (which has wonderful breads).  Great potential and within walkable distance to the 18th street Homeland, but there are still so many gaps in the fabric and there are not enough residents for it to even be considered a neighborhood.  Still, if you want to be a pioneer give it a shot.  The Sieber Hotel redevelopment looks to be a nice place to call home.
  4. Crown Heights – This is a wonderful neighborhood within close walking distance to the Western restaurant corridor with lots of great dining and bar options.  Not too many other neighborhood amenities are currently available along Western and the neighborhood DOES NOT have sidewalks of any kind.  I love this neighborhood and was happy to call it home for a couple of years.  You probably can’t practice a fully walkable lifestyle here, but it still has its moments and is a great place to live.  (I would probably put Edgemere Park in the same category.)
  5. Downtown / Bricktown / The Triangle – Similar to Midtown, all of the “urban” neighborhoods have yet to really take hold.  Bricktown probably has the best breadth of services, but has only limited living options.  The Triangle is within walking distance to Bricktown, but not much else.  Downtown has some terrific amenities like: the OKC Museum of Art, Civic Center Performance Center, Downtown Library, Ford Center Arena, restaurants, etc; but virtually every housing unit – if not 100% – is sold with a parking spot, which should give you some idea.  In my opinion, these neighborhoods are wonderful options if you have the money, but better values can be found in all of the previously mentioned locations.  Still, I have heard that prices are dropping in at least one new downtown housing development – Maywood Park – so maybe it is worth investigating further.



RESPONSE

What do you think?  After reading it again I am thinking that I definitely should have put Crown Heights at the bottom of the list, but am still pretty confident with the idea that Downtown / Bricktown / The Triangle are not currently the best options – probably #4 – though hopefully they will be at the top of the list sometime soon.  Also, I would be interested to get your thoughts on the neighborhoods I missed.  Perhaps I should have mentioned the campus area of Norman – which is probably the most walkable neighborhood in all of central Oklahoma – but I was thinking only in OKC proper.

One note, I realize that almost all of these neighborhoods (with the exception of Bricktown and the Triangle) are in the northwest quadrant of the city.  This points to a limitation on my own perspective and experience, but also to the historic growth pattern of the city.  So if you have ideas about completely different parts of the city that you think offer something special, please let me know as I would love to check them out.

Roadsworth(y) Street Art

September 19th, 2008

Something fun for your Friday. I thought I would introduce you to the street art of Roadsworth. The Montreal native produces some very clever stuff, the majority of which he illegally paints on the street.

Toxel.com has pulled together some of Roadworth’s best stuff which you can see here.

WEEKEND IN NYC

As for me, I am catching the early bus to NYC where I will hopefully get to see some of the ad-hoc parks that are being setup for Park(ing) Day NYC. I actually just found out that this was going on tomorrow and am pretty excited that my trip coincides with this event.

Still, the real purpose of the trip is to spend some time with friends and take in a game at Yankee Stadium, which is scheduled to be torn down at the end of the season as the Yankees move to their new digs across the street. I have never had the pleasure of taking in a game at “the House that Ruth Built.” I have been talking to my wife about it all summer and, being the procrastinator that I am, I finally bought tickets for the second to last game this Saturday. I will probably be sporting my Red Sox’s hat, so it should be an experience!


Turning Streets Into Temporary Playgrounds

August 12th, 2008

New York City’s Department of Transportation recently kicked of their ‘Summer Streets’ program, similar to Bogota’s Ciclovia the program temporarily closes major streets to automobiles, allowing people to takeover the space and use it to walk, bike, or just hangout. Like Bogota, they also provided health and fitness activities to encourage people to get out and exercise.

Do you think this could happen in Oklahoma City? Would we be willing to give some space back to pedestrians, even if only for a day? Creating a permanent pedestrian friendly environment downtown will take some time. It will require the full commitment of the city with each new development, zoning change, and public improvement. But closing a street for a day takes nothing more than the will and a “road closed” sign. If you have ever been downtown during the day on a Saturday, then you know that traffic is not really a problem. It would be great to close a couple streets from downtown all the way to the trails at the river every Saturday. South of 10th Street on Broadway then down Shields to the river is my preference. The YMCA would be able to provide some exercise programming and the two new bicycle shops – Bicycle Alley and Schlegel’s Bicycles – could serve as headquarter for bike rentals, etc.

If you are interested in improving things on a more permanent basis, check out this post on Mapping Pedestrian Friendliness in OKC!

Walkability Rankings: Oklahoma City #35

July 20th, 2008

Walkscore.com has released their rankings of America’s Most Walkable Cities. My expectations for OKC on something like this are never very high, but I always hope we at least finish somewhere respectable and not in the bottom five (as the top and bottom five it seems is always what gets published). Unfortunately, by tying Memphis for 35th we barely missed escaping the bottom five and the resulting terrible publicity. I mean, can you believe we get beat by cities like Houston and Detroit?

MOST AND LEAST WALKABLE CITIES (with walkability score)
Top 5
1. San Francisco: 86
2. New York: 83
3. Boston: 79
4. Chicago: 76
5. Philadelphia: 74

Bottom 5
35. TIE – Oklahoma City and Memphis: 43
37. Indianapolis: 42
38. Charlotte: 39
39. Nashville: 39
40. Jacksonville: 36

To make matters worse, the San Francisco Chronicle let Memphis off the hook – by listing Oklahoma City alone in the bottom five with an asterisk – and then displayed the information in such an unintuitive order that Oklahoma City actually looks like it finished dead last. Check out the article and see what I mean.


ABOUT THE METHOD OF ANALYSIS

In reality, Walkscore’s method of analysis has a number of flaws – many of which I find to be fatal. To their credit, they are the first to admit these weaknesses. Here is what they have to say.

There are a number of factors that contribute to walkability that are not part of our algorithm:

  • Public transit: Good public transit is important for walkable neighborhoods.
  • Street width and block length: Narrow streets slow down traffic. Short blocks provide more routes to the same destination and make it easier to take a direct route.
  • Street design: Sidewalks and safe crossings are essential to walkability. Appropriate automobile speeds, trees, and other features also help.
  • Safety from crime and crashes: How much crime is in the neighborhood? How many traffic accidents are there? Are streets well-lit?
  • Pedestrian-friendly community design: Are buildings close to the sidewalk with parking in back? Are destinations clustered together?
  • Topography: Hills can make walking difficult, especially if you’re carrying groceries.
  • Freeways and bodies of water: Freeways can divide neighborhoods. Swimming is harder than walking
  • Weather: In some places it’s just too hot or cold to walk regularly

I bet San Francisco is glad they didn’t include topography…ehh? What all this means is that their “algorithm” simply measure’s the proximity of amenities from a given point. So anything within 1/4-mile of a mall would receive the highest rating and while it is true that malls are incredibly walkable (when you are inside), it is not true that malls create walkable neighborhoods – in fact, it is quite the opposite when surrounded by parking. This is also true of densely lined retail arterials like May Avenue. While they certainly provide access to a number of retailers and amenities within a short range of distance, very few people would actually walk from shopping center to shopping center and consider the experience enjoyable. A few better ways to measure walkability in my opinion would either attempt to include measures for the elements listed above or would simply count the number of people actually walking. Afterall, what good is “walkability” if no one walks? But what do you do if it is “bad walkability” and everyone walks? Either way, it gets very complicated very quickly for a range of issues that we can tackle at a later date.


OKLAHOMA CITY WALKABILITY

Walkscore had these interesting facts to share about walkability in Oklahoma City:

  • 8% of Oklahoma City residents have a Walk Score of 70 or above.
  • 40% have a Walk Score of at least 50
  • and 60% live in Car-Dependent neighborhoods

Despite the flaws of the analysis, the map produced by their rating system is still interesting to study.

It might be helpful if we wanted to select areas of the city that would benefit most from pedestrian improvements, more residential density, and/or strategies for creating viable urban environments. It also might make sense for the greenest areas to serve as primary nodes in a transportation system as access to these nodes would theoretically provide access to a wide range of amenities.


MY CURRENT NEIGHBORHOOD

As some of you know, I am currently living in Boston studying planning and urban design. My wife and I sold our cars before moving into a small apartment in Boston’s Back Bay. My school is 1.5 miles from our place and I can get to school in one of three ways: walking, biking, or riding public-transit. I pretty much make this decision based on weather (often terrible here) and how much time I have (biking is fastest by far). We also regularly walk to stores, walk to dinner, or walk to church. And walking here is great, it is literally a textbook example of pedestrian-friendly using Gehl’s criteria. It has historic buildings, a variety of stores and restaurant, sidewalk dining, lots of people, etc…

Still, I am not going to say that life without a car is easy – its not. That is not the point. The point is that life with walking is great!

Of course people will continue to have cars in Oklahoma City – as do most of the people in Greater Boston – but we should not let all of our decisions be so skewed towards an auto-centric city that it ruins any prospect of a walking lifestyle – whether it is out of necessity or by choice.

So where does my current residence stack up on the walkability score? Very Good. It is actually the #1 most walkable neighborhood in the #3 most walkable city.

At some point in the future I will talk more about the Back Bay and what I have learned about urbanity from the time I have spent here. But that will have to wait, because over the next few weeks I am going to be working on a five part series focused on an upcoming development in Downtown Oklahoma City and the incredible opportunity it provides for the city – but only if we decide to do it right! I still have to do some more research and a lot more work. But hopefully it will be worth the wait.

For now, I just want everyone to know that I really appreciate you reading. If you have any ideas of stuff that you would like to discuss in the future, please let me know. I will try to get a little discussion going by asking a simple question:

When was the last time you walked from your house to purchase something from a store?

…and an ice-cream truck does not count.

Mapping Pedestrian Friendliness in OKC

July 12th, 2008

I came across this article by Jan Gehl – an urban design rock star – in which he discusses the importance of the design of the first-floor of urban buildings in attracting pedestrians and creating active streets. Downtown Oklahoma City has made tremendous gains since MAPS, but we still have very few streets with the restaurants, shopping, and (above all) people most often found in a pedestrian-friendly urban environment. In the article Close Encounters with Building (note: downloads as a .pdf), Gehl explains the importance of the first ten feet of a building and how it can either help to create a street or public space that pedestrians want to visit or conversely, create a place that pedestrians will avoid.

Gehl has done a ton of research, often using teams of researchers to observe 100m sections of street and record measurements such as the number of pedestrians, pedestrian speed, number of stops, number of times they entered/exited a building, etc. Through this he has been able to identify a handful of design attributes that can either attract or deter pedestrians by creating what he calls the ‘urban scene at eye level’. Here is what Gehl has to say about the design attributes he has identified and how they can lead to creating a good or bad ‘urban scene at eye level’.

THE URBAN SCENE AT EYE LEVEL

Scale and Rhythm

1. Scale and Rhythm

Pedestrians experience the urban scene at maximum three mph, with plenty of time to enjoy the surroundings. Small units provide a wide range of experiences, and a large number of doors provide many points of exchange between outside and inside. A scale of three mph is compact and rich in sensory experience. A scale of 35 mph also features qualities worthy of sharing, but rarely are they meaningful to pedestrians.

Transparency

Transparency

The opportunity to be on the inside looking out – and on the outside looking in – significantly broadens the range of experiences in the buildings themselves and in urban space. If we walk through the city close to the facades, the various display windows and opportunities to share what is happening in the buildings enrich our experience considerably. And people inside the buildings can follow what is happening in the surrounding urban space. Life inside and outside the buildings can thus interact for the benefit of both.

Appeals to Many Senses

Appeals to Many Senses

We can draw on all our senses when we are close to buildings, and we have sufficient time to look, listen, smell and touch the good things on offer. A wealth of sensory impressions and shopping opportunities awaits. In contrast, a string of orange posters is a poor substitute.

Texture

Texture

Good materials and fine details are an attraction for people strolling through the city. There is ample opportunity to reach out and touch the buildings and examine the smallest detail. Attractive ground-level facades offer texture, good materials and carefully crafted details.

Mix of Functions

Mix of Functions

The functions inside buildings have a major impact on the activity and attractiveness of the spaces outside. The desire for narrow units and many doors in the facade can be echoed in a desire for wide functional variation inside. The outcome is many units, many points of exchange between outside and inside, and a wealth of many different events and experiences. The department store with its ten large display windows is far less interesting than the ten different functions in the street scene opposite.

Vertical Facade Rhythm

Vertical Facade Rhythm

Walking along a ground floor fac?ade with primarily vertical rhythms makes the walk much more interesting and eye-catching. We move from ‘column to column’, which makes the walk seem shorter. Facades with primarily horizontal articulation intensify the feeling of distance – a long tiring prospect at eye height.

FACADE MAPS

With these attributes in hand, he creates a map of a city showing the “problem facades” that interrupt pedestrian paths and lower the overall quality of the pedestrian experience. For instance, this diagram compares the street facades of (a) Stockholm to those of (b) Copenhagen. The difference between the two maps speaks to a dramatic difference for pedestrians.

Maps of \

Look at the open plazas and squares in (b) Copenhagen, almost all of which are surrounded by pedestrian friendly (light facades). Whereas (a) Stockholm has block after block of poor facades with few pedestrian-friendly plazas or squares (the exception being the one shown on the lower left side. After creating these maps, Gehl has been able to work with cities in creating urban design guidelines that address the problems and has successfully attracted increased numbers of pedestrians in cities around the world.

FACADES IN OKC?

So here is the question, where do we have examples of each of these facade types in Oklahoma City? It would be great if we could create our own facade map of Downtown Oklahoma City & Bricktown and determine which areas are pro-pedestrian and anti-pedestrian according to the attribute listed above.

Here is what I think might work. Everyone could take some time to assess a street (or seven) – based on memory, by actually visiting, or using streetview- and add their assessment to our very own Google map — creating a Pedestrian Friendliness Map of Oklahoma City!

Here is an example of a green (green = pedestrian friendly) push pin I added for the Bricktown Canal as it approaches Mickey Mantle – click to enlarge.
Facade Map Example - Good Ped Environment

While this is an example of a red (red = bad for pedestrians) push pin I added for Robert S. Kerr St. just west of EK Gaylord.
Facade Map Example - Bad Ped Environment

Give it a shot. Just use the descriptions mentioned above to assess each of the attributes. Here is the form info I used that you can paste into the pushpin description window:

Good for Pedestrians? (Yes, No or Maybe)

Scale and Rhythm: Yes
Transparency: No
Appeals to many Senses: Maybe
Texture: Yes
Mix of Functions: No
Vertical Facade Rhythm: Yes

Trust your gut as to whether it deserves a Green Pin or a Red Pin. It is easy to do so give it a shot!

Here is what you do:

  1. click on the link below
  2. click the ‘Save to My Maps’ link on the upper-left side
  3. then click the button on the left side of the screen


CLICK HERE TO START ADDING TO THE MAP

Here is what our efforts have produced so far:


View Larger Map