Some ideas to reuse developments

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Here is a video that I found on the L.A. Creek Freak Website.

While the gas prices mentioned in this video may currently lower than they were back then, but the video does have some great information on how to revitalize our suburban communities into more walkable transit friendly areas.

Part of the video also mentions on how shopping centers in several areas including malls have been reused and redesign to make them more people friendly.

Think about the Dolan Legacy shopping center on the northeast corner of 700 East and 9400 South. While the center only has passable transit service, this area could be redesigned into a more welcoming mixed use development with just some creative thinking.

Another great point made in the video that I have mentioned in the past is the importance of having a mixture of housing price ranges in a development.

One of the problems with existing developments including affordable housing is that it segregates people into different areas which of course leads to the "those kind of people attitudes".

The final part of the video also talks about re-greening areas. Here in Salt Lake there has been talk about restoring City Creek through the downtown area (not counting the fake creek at the City Creek shopping Center).

Blog Entries of Note...

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From Streetsblog San Francisco:

SF School District Encourages Students to Bike

School district officials are putting in new bicycle racks and plus giving students a brush up on bicycle safety.

San Francisco Should Take Cues from New York and Just Try It!

New York is turning a section of busy Broadway at Times Square into a pedestrian area.

From the California High Speed Rail Blog:

Grade Separations Done Right

In California the NIMBY's are coming out of the woodwork because of the High Speed Rail Project. One is picturing the elevated line looking like an ugly freeway through the area.

Tight Squeeze At Transbay Terminal?

Like so many projects, the new Transbay Terminal in San Francisco could be at capacity very quickly and may not have the provisions to expand.

From Transit Miami:

Action Alert: Miami-Dade’s Million Dollar Bicycle Infrastructure Push

Miami may get improved bicycling infrastructure.

From the Overhead Wire Blog:

Preserving Affordable Housing Near Transit

Looking at some ways to insure that there is affordable housing near transit.

Connecting the Dots

Issues with the Fremont to San Jose BART extension

From the Cap'n Transit Blog:

Feds relax restrictions for light rail

Maybe the Obama administration will bring some sanity back to the FRA.

A transit friendly development...

Image via Wikipedia Previously, I have discussed how we can take currently auto centric areas that are not working such as 4500 South and State Street and turn them into a more pedestrian and transit friendly area. Not only would this make the area more pleasing but it would also help boost bus ridership giving people the opportunity to live near the transit lines.

Now, I want to take a little closer look at this proposal using this same area. There is already construction on TOD near the Murray North TRAX station so lets walk across the street and see what we can do.

Since the new Deseret Industries building has already been built and is pretty auto centric, we will look at the couple of blocks north of 4500 South.

First of all you would need to rebuild a few blocks of Main Street that are not very pedestrian friendly. With the construction of the new developments by the TRAX station, this will increase the need for a more pedestrian friendly environment.

Then you will need to design the housing. If you look at the successful old cities compared to what we have now with suburban cookie cutter developments, you will notice that there is a range of prices. This has worked well in Daybreak were there is everything from Condos all the way up to expensive homes all located in the same area. In other words there is no economic segregation that creates walls between people.

I have also discussed the need to have affordable units so that people who need transit can access it easily. As part of having affordable housing is the need for work/live units. While these are going to be part of the Cottonwood Mall development, these of course will out of the price range we are talking about. As I have mentioned many times when new developments are built smaller locally owned businesses are usually the first to get the boot. By building affordable work/live units, this will give people new opportunities to have their own businesses and control their own destinies.

Finally you also need to have retail shops such as markets so that people living in the complex can walk to shopping. Like the housing, these should have affordable units so that locally owned businesses can afford them and develop their own businesses.

Once again there is many spots were this type of development could work such as along Redwood Road all the way from Interstate 80 to SLCC, the area around 900 East/4500 South, and many others.

Moab Facing Affordable Housing Problems...

Image via Wikipedia Landowner's development plans highlight affordable housing dilemma in Moab

Just earlier this week there was an article of what his facing the Heber Valley and how affordable housing is slowly becoming non-existent in the area. Moab is even in worse shape since they do not have nearby cities to dump their lower income people in.

Most of the these people will have to either had to places like Thompson, Green River, or Monticello which is a good distance from the Moab area.

Creative Financing in Utah County

Image via Wikipedia Roads get first dib, rail coming fast

Looks like UTA and Utah County are doing some creative financing so Utah County can build more roads.

What needs to be taken into consideration when doing this creative financing is that the voters approved this money primarily for the funding of Front Runner south and transit projects in the Utah County area.

Looking at this carefully, maybe some more requirements should be put on this money such as any roads that are built with this money have to be pedestrian and bicycle friendly.

Also from Park City is talk about Affordable Housing. Park City is having the same problem that has faced many of the famous ski cities such as Aspen and Jackson Hole.

Affordable housing elusive in Park City

Town striving not to be just for rich 2nd-home owners