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Rather minor since i just like watching and seeing how Wando HS's campus grows but i was looking at the road projects they were aiming to attach to a tax increase ballot in november and one of them is a realignment of Darrel Creek trail (the road behind Wando) which would give the campus a lot more room to the south where the currently little used soccer field and bus loop access is. Doesn't mean much on it's own i guess but the budget for 'district improvements to include Wando' is 51mil~ in the Phase 5 CCSD capitol plan and the recently completed band room expansion was less than 5mil so i assume that can go pretty far.
Mostly just interesting to think about what they might do rather than anything for sure.
The way Charleston is situated is exactly the reason it will not work. You going to shut down a lane in either direction on major thoroughfares to allow a bus with 10 people on it to move more quickly. There is no foot traffic from from downtown going out.
MARTA has, by far, the best public transit in the South. It still doesn't work and loses money continually despite have a 1/2 cent sales tax to help fund it.
Exactly this. It's pie in the sky thinking that if people were just smart enough to listen to "us", everything would be fine. Everywhere has sprawl. People want to be outside of the city with access to the amenities that cities offer. That's why you have things like Mount Pleasant Town Center.
I just read an article in Business Insider about Detroit’s amazing turnaround downtown. It called the transformation one of the biggest success stories since people began moving out of cities. It talked about Detroit’s devastation and the escape from the city to the suburbs. But, it said, now people want to live in the city. In-town housing price appreciation there recently outpaced Miami’s percentage-wise.
People want to live in cities. In Detroit’s case, opportunity to live in the downtown area availed itself at a reasonable price. There is not an urban district in this country that doesn’t have room to build more housing units while rehabbing existing buildings for housing units as well. Public transit happens in dense areas more so than amidst sprawl. Good public transit happens in cities that ignore public transit naysayers and invest in it sufficiently to attract more people to it.
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Originally Posted by Charlestondata
I just read an article in Business Insider about Detroit’s amazing turnaround downtown. It called the transformation one of the biggest success stories since people began moving out of cities. It talked about Detroit’s devastation and the escape from the city to the suburbs. But, it said, now people want to live in the city. In-town housing price appreciation there recently outpaced Miami’s percentage-wise.
People want to live in cities. In Detroit’s case, opportunity to live in the downtown area availed itself at a reasonable price. There is not an urban district in this country that doesn’t have room to build more housing units while rehabbing existing buildings for housing units as well. Public transit happens in dense areas more so than amidst sprawl. Good public transit happens in cities that ignore public transit naysayers and invest in it sufficiently to attract more people to it.
Simple anecdotes don't mean "people want to live in cities". Detroit had an incredible amount of money thrown at renewing downtown. There were vast swathes of land available for extraordinarily low prices (we have neither of those). But it's only downtown. The change has been very white centric, despite Detroit being almost 78% black. It's hardly the poster for true urban renewal. This is a Fortune 500 renewal as major corporations downtown have helped with the funding. In case you forgot, Detroit was so financially strapped they declared bankruptcy in 2013.
While downtown has experienced a resurgence, low-income Black neighborhoods have been left behind. Detroit remains the most segregated city in the country. While the median income for white Detroiters increased by 60% from 2010 to 2019, it has remained relatively flat for Black residents. The unemployment rate for Black Detroiters is 1.5 times higher than that of white residents.
Simple anecdotes don't mean "people want to live in cities". Detroit had an incredible amount of money thrown at renewing downtown. There were vast swathes of land available for extraordinarily low prices (we have neither of those). But it's only downtown. The change has been very white centric, despite Detroit being almost 78% black. It's hardly the poster for true urban renewal. This is a Fortune 500 renewal as major corporations downtown have helped with the funding. In case you forgot, Detroit was so financially strapped they declared bankruptcy in 2013.
While downtown has experienced a resurgence, low-income Black neighborhoods have been left behind. Detroit remains the most segregated city in the country. While the median income for white Detroiters increased by 60% from 2010 to 2019, it has remained relatively flat for Black residents. The unemployment rate for Black Detroiters is 1.5 times higher than that of white residents.
Not quite the happy, happy, joy, joy story after all.
A statement that people want to live in cities isn’t saying everyone wants to live in cities any more than saying people want to live out in quiet areas means everyone does. I am saying and have said all along that people aren’t given a wide enough range of choices between the two and that many go with what’s the most available in their price range, even if it means a ‘beach’ of a commute.
I wouldn’t expect a high percentage of people to buy houses far enough away from where the action is to afford it and then tell everyone they really wish they could have found something in the city but had to buy where they could afford a house. It would be a drag for them to go around saying that.
And I wouldn’t expect new downtown Detroit residents to have moved there without the city, by whatever means they could find, pouring (You pessimistically say throwing.) a lot of money into coming back from the desolation downtown Detroit experienced. But they have moved there. Why? Because it became an option they could afford.
Some people want to live downtown. Some people want a yard and detached homes. I have no issues with these two statements. However, Charlestondata you have repeatedly come across as implying anyone who wants to live in the latter is wrong and the only solution is density. So I don't think m1a1mg is out of line to assume a post by you concerning people moving to downtown Detroit is anything but a continuation of this line of thinking.
Some people want to live downtown. Some people want a yard and detached homes. I have no issues with these two statements. However, Charlestondata you have repeatedly come across as implying anyone who wants to live in the latter is wrong and the only solution is density. So I don't think m1a1mg is out of line to assume a post by you concerning people moving to downtown Detroit is anything but a continuation of this line of thinking.
I have criticized the design of suburbs as we know them on behalf of suburban dwellers who are sick of the problems that such design has caused. Nothing more, nothing less.
I have said many people choose to live in the suburbs because there are not enough viable alternatives in downtowns to fit within their budgets. The response for the most part has been that I’m wrong, that people don’t want to live downtown, but rather want houses with room for their children to play.
I have said all along that there should be opportunities for people to live in small towns with a small town vibe not ruined by homogenized suburbia. Same for country living opportunities. I have said that if suburbia as we know it continues, small-town and country-living opportunities will become more and more rare.
I have not said that people seeking to live outside the city are “wrong”, ever. I say what I say as a person with an interest in best practices for building the most livable city and metro possible.
I find it odd that so many people who have found themselves dealing with traffic quagmires every day also try to shut down any conversation about public transit as being pie-in-the-sky nonsense instead of at least having enough imagination to see themselves taking advantage of a state-of-the-art public transit system if there is ever enough buy-in to get it done.
I find it odd that so many people who have found themselves dealing with traffic quagmires every day also try to shut down any conversation about public transit as being pie-in-the-sky nonsense instead of at least having enough imagination to see themselves taking advantage of a state-of-the-art public transit system if there is ever enough buy-in to get it done.
Not sure if I'm lumped in that group but I've given reasons as to why I think various forms of public transportation won't work. Mainly because there isn't room on most of our clogged arteries to put in place without having a negative effect on general traffic flow. And also, that it's a tough sell given the inconveniences that come with PT. What are your thoughts on how it would work? How will busses with dedicated bus lanes not clog up arteries like 17? How would you convince a large enough % of the population to use PT vs sitting for a similar amount of time in their comfortable cars that they take directly to and from their home all the while carrying all of the miscellaneous stuff we tend to lug around?
Not sure if I'm lumped in that group but I've given reasons as to why I think various forms of public transportation won't work. Mainly because there isn't room on most of our clogged arteries to put in place without having a negative effect on general traffic flow. And also, that it's a tough sell given the inconveniences that come with PT. What are your thoughts on how it would work? How will busses with dedicated bus lanes not clog up arteries like 17? How would you convince a large enough % of the population to use PT vs sitting for a similar amount of time in their comfortable cars that they take directly to and from their home all the while carrying all of the miscellaneous stuff we tend to lug around?
The busses we see on the roads now do fine. Adding a lot more frequency would lead to fewer cars on the road. If I knew all I to do was wait another 10 to 15 if I didn’t leave my home to walk to my corner bus stop in time to catch one bus, no big deal. Another one would be there shortly.
More routes that wouldn’t each try to be all things to all bus riders in a large sections of the metro, but instead get more people where they want to go with more direct routes would be another component in getting more people to take advantage of PT. The rapid bus transit line that is coming amidst naysayers’ doubts about its arrival and success will be an example of how dedicated bus lines work. We can either have a po dunk attitude about urban public transit or we can hope the system grows and moves a lot more people.
Not sure if I'm lumped in that group but I've given reasons as to why I think various forms of public transportation won't work. Mainly because there isn't room on most of our clogged arteries to put in place without having a negative effect on general traffic flow. And also, that it's a tough sell given the inconveniences that come with PT. What are your thoughts on how it would work? How will busses with dedicated bus lanes not clog up arteries like 17? How would you convince a large enough % of the population to use PT vs sitting for a similar amount of time in their comfortable cars that they take directly to and from their home all the while carrying all of the miscellaneous stuff we tend to lug around?
One of the problems with local mass transit is that it is perceived as public transportation. And in the south, that is loaded. The other major problem is what you mention- how to guarantee some efficiency. They would need to have at least two stations in each part of town to act as hubs for more frequent buses on the main arteries and less frequent buses on the lesser ones. And typically, it only works when the destination is a more tightly packed center where you can easily walk (or take a secondary bus) to the final destination. If they could ever finish 526 I think that gives them another route to get buses in/out of downtown. I think they could retrofit Rivers or Dorchester to accommodate some type of dedicated lane but you are correct that 17 (either WA or MP) would be a beast (if possible.) The only hope there, Folly Road, 61, anywhere on Johns Island, and similar is if you can divert enough traffic elsewhere to make that smoother or use an alternate road (such as Glenn McConnel) to move in/out of an area. It becomes a chicken and egg proposal as they need to start providing the infrastructure before it is viable- so that it can become viable.
A vast majority of the people living in the suburbs do so because that's what they want.
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