Creating Places: Memphis

Journeyed to Memphis earlier this week and will be posting some observations soon. Two items of note: 1. there is an effort to rehab the vintage commercial buildings along a three-block stretch of Broad Avenue (between Hollywood on the west and Collins on the East). I noticed a number of businesses already operating from the spaces. Work is needed but the future might be bright; 2. I marveled for the last time at the architecturally impressive Union Avenue United Methodist Church anchoring the southwest corner of the Cooper and Union intersection. This stately gem will soon be felled to make room for a building — one we know that will be anything but a stately gem — to house a CVS. Splendid.

Creating Places: Mass Transit Update

For years, comprehensive mass transit in Nashville has been no more impressive than NPR’s handling the firing of Juan Williams (no relation).

But on the heels of concluding a major study regarding intelligent transportation systems (ITS), the Nashville Area Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) is now crafting a plan that could aid Midstate public works departments and transit agencies with low-cost solutions to addressing infrastructure concerns.

Though not fully funded, the ITS Deployment Plan could yield transit improvements related to usage efficiency.

The MPO study, conducted by the Nashville office of Texas-based Kimley-Horn & Associates, touches on the nationally newish open transit data concept. With an open data approach, a transit agency makes its information available to software programming companies, which then create applications citizens can access via their hand-held devices. Lots of transit agencies are a bit skittish about “going open.”

Of note and with the ITS plan possibly providing some guidance for a future broader strategy, the Metro Transit Authority is preparing to implement a real-time data plan. The MTA program will see electronic signage offer bus status updates, specifically at stops along the authority’s bus rapid transit line (Gallatin Road/Main Street) and at the Music City Central downtown hub. Signs already are installed at the BRT stops and will soon be installed at MCC.

That real-time data effort was to have been in place by now but was delayed when MTA servers and equipment suffered flood damage, according to James McAteer, the authority’s director of planning.

“Real-time data is the path were going down,” McAteer told me via phone and for an article I wrote for The City Paper. McAteer added that MTA is exploring mechanisms to make the authority’s data “open” to programming companies.

McAteer said MTA is planning to offer its bus route schedules in real time and to riders’ hand-held devices. This can be done, he said, prior to making the agency’s data open to programmers. Both McAteer and MTA spokeswoman Patricia Harris-Morehead told me the agency is neither philosophically nor fiscally opposed to a fully open data approach. However, there are legal and contractual issues with MTA vendors that must be addressed.

Transit Now Nashville, the city’s feisty non-profit advocacy group, wants MTA eventually to provide the more comprehensive open-data system and hopes the MPO-commissioned study can be of help.

With an open-data system — and assuming programmers develop applications with it — bus riders, for example, can use their hand-held mobile devices to monitor route efficiency and ridership. In simple terms, if a bus is running late, a rider could find out — and then take time to, say, quickly grab a cup of coffee at the nearest café.

“With open data, software developers can use the data to create new applications,” Travis Todd, Transit Now president, told me via phone while he was stressed during a regular work day and I was still in sleepwear, enjoying a cup of coffee and trying to convince myself that this freelance writing gig is legitimate work. “If the data stays closed, the public’s only source for that information is the agency that controls it.”

Todd said that an open data system could help spur private investment as an ancillary component of public transportation.

“Like weather information, we want to have transit information easily available, real-time and free,” he said. “The best way to get there fast is to open the data and give private companies a chance to create tools to complement existing transit systems.”

Todd said Transit Now has surveyed numerous citizens who have never ridden transit in Nashville and determined that a real-time app for bus services “would persuade them to ride for the first time.” I have some doubts about that as folks tend to exaggerate their seriousness about hopping on a public bus. But I want to be hopeful and if we combine hand-held devices and buses, well it might just work.

Not surprisingly, Nashville is not alone in failing to embrace open transit data.

Of note and according to City-Go-Round, of the nation’s 824 major transit systems, 122 offer an open-data system and 702 do not.

“Transit data sharing is a relatively new concept and [Metro Government] officials may see it as a cost, especially if their system was built for internal use only,” Todd said. “In addition, we know that MTA was greatly affected by the flood. They lost buses and equipment, and they are in the process of moving their offices again. Yet, they have made many accomplishments this year. We are optimistic that, in time, they will open the data.”

The Rockefeller Foundation-funded City-Go-Round website retrieves — via the General Transit Feed Specification (GTFS) Data Exchange — a list of those agencies that provide public data in GTFS format. City-Go-Round matches these agencies against its master list of transit agencies that was compiled from the National Transportation Database. This enables the City-Go-Round site to show users those agencies that do and do not provide open data.

Josh Herst, CEO of Seattle-based Walk Score (for which City-Go-Round is an initiative), said open data can help make transit usage more convenient.

“More people will find transit valuable and land values will increase near areas that are well served by transit,” Herst said in yet another phone interview.

A fine example of open data benefits, Herst said, is location-based mobile network Foursquare, which allows riders in the San Francisco Bay Area to monitor if their friends are using transit.

If MTA eventually opts for a full open data approach, the MPO study may have served the broad purpose for which it was conducted.

Michael Skipper, MPO executive director, said the next step with the ITS Deployment Plan, is finding funding for the study’s recommendations.

“As we move forward in an environment with limited financial resources, we’ll be looking to invest in low-cost solutions that help modernize our infrastructure,” Skipper said (no need to add “in a phone interview”) “ITS solutions span a broad range of projects ranging from providing real-time transit arrival and departure information via cell phone to improving the synchronization of traffic signals to keep roadways moving efficiently."

Related to mass transit in Nashville specifically, an intelligent transportation system program could use computer-aided dispatching tools to, say, help bus drivers monitor the location of accidents and automated passenger counting systems.

Mary Beth Ikard, MPO’s hard-working spokeswoman, said a major reason for the organization’s commissioning the ITS architecture study was “to improve emergency management coordination across jurisdictional boundaries to speed incident response.”

“Not all the jurisdictions in our planning area need to agree to use identical technology that speaks to each other, but it’s important to have everyone sitting at the table and aware of what their neighbor has and is using (under the umbrella of the ITS architecture),” Ikard said. “You can see how this would be especially important during something like the May flooding.”

Ikard said the ITS Deployment Plan is not “fiscally constrained.”

“So even though many of projects identified for the plan don't have any funding associated with them," she said, "they do represent important priorities for the region."

Creating Places: Vista Germantown

With my modest "self-employment work schedule" not a hindrance, I attended this past week's groundbreaking ceremony for Vista Germantown. Thankfully, Mayor Karl Dean and other officials kept their comments (cliched as you might expect) brief. Looking at the renderings and talking to Southeast Venture architect Gaius Overton and Bristol Development's Ashlyn Hines I am encouraged at their willingness to solicit feedback. I told both that though I like the overall appearance and functionality of the building as currently proposed, I have a few concerns (particularly regarding color scheme). Not that one man's opinion will spur changes — or that others would share my views regarding the colors — but both Bristol and Southeast Venture are open to modifications. This is encouraging. More on Vista Germantown very soon.

Creating Places: Wells Fargo Signage

I noticed yesterday new signage for the downtown office building at 230 Fourth Ave. N. and with the anchor tenant Wells Fargo. The building's face and plaza both sport signs similar to the sign in the photo on the right. That is, the lettering essentially overwhelms the sign itself with no proportionality. Compounding the ugliness is a color scheme that suggests a fire-red hot dog with mustard. Very tacky. In contrast, note the sign in the image on the left. The lettering is nicely balanced in the relation to the overall rectangular sign, there is an image of a stagecoach (with a tasteful underline), and the black and white soften the garishness of the red/yellow hot dog vibe.

Even a 4-year-old could determine the more attractive of the two signs.

This is another classic "signage misstep" that we so often see in Nashville. Fumbles of this type, when multiplied, can "cartoon-ize" our built fabric. Very disappointing.

Creating Places: The Square...Madison

I drove through Germantown this past Sunday and noticed what seems to have been some recent work on the site of the proposed The Square at Fourth & Madison. Do any of the five of you who read this blog have any updated info on this project?

Creating Places: Omni Hotel

Viewing the Omni Hotel rendering for the first time today (and, of course, realizing this is a rendering only) I nonetheless asked myself, "Where is the distinctiveness? Where is the edge? An 800-room hotel that will anchor a nationally significant convention center and we get, seemingly, a basic box? And a box that's not even 300 feet tall?"

True, it's early in the process and images of this type can be misleading. Maybe the Omni will feature various eye-catching metal elements, some colored glass and interesting geometric forms — despite what will apparently be a very conventional overall shape. Of note, I am optimistic about the street activation. On this theme, the structure should feature a well-defined base, always a plus. And I like the catwalk connecting the hotel to the MCC (and spanning Fifth Avenue).

At the least, we're getting a nice-sized building that will add substantial pedestrian activity to SoBro. But after hearing Omni officials, during the media event to announce the company's arrival, gush about the stellar building they would deliver...either they exaggerated or they misguidedly (perhaps driven by ego) think that every building they develop is outstanding. Questionable either way. Still, I want to be hopeful. There are some very cool Omni hotels, so maybe ours will be too — my modest initial reaction notwithstanding.

Creating Places: Skyscraper City or Not?

With the renderings for the Omni Hotel to be released, we hope, any day, high-rise nerds (myself included) are pondering whether the building might reach 500 feet. The discussion of the height of the future Omni begs the question: Will Nashville, like Atlanta, one day be a "skyscraper city"?

Perhaps the question is not "will" Nashville ever be a skyscraper city but, rather, "should" it be? I would say "no."

Ideally, Nashville's urban core will offer primarily tastefully designed small to mid-sized mixed-use buildings (three to 10 stories) with the occasional high-rise (up to 500 feet) for vista punctuation and man-made environment variety. Lots of tall buildings would limit the need for the small to mid-sized mixed buildings that make things interesting on a pedestrian (i.e., ground) level -- and that provide the type building and people density that drives mass transit. Among mid-sized cities, Portland is great example of this model. It has a handful of buildings 300 feet or taller and a plethora of structures in the three- to seven-story range.

Just like we don't want a sprawling built fabric with every building one use, horizontal and sited on lots of dead acreage, we don't want, say, 20 buildings of 500 feet or taller and a sea of surface parking "connecting" those towers. A middle ground (much like the one I describe previously) is preferred.