Mountain West Microbrew: Chit chat and irrelevancy

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by The Dirt

But hurr durr Olympics and ski resorts!

Edit: clearly I have nothing constructive to add. I'll say one thing. The BART transit system map is leagues better than what we or SLC have. We should copy them.

BART is far better in 'intent.'

Unlike every other transit system except the subway built (and expanding) in DC, BART at least intended to serve a consolidated statistical metropolitan area. Had San Jose and a few other cities bought the idea back in the '60s, the entire Bay area south of the BART tunnel would be looped with a great commuter system and 3 major metro areas would all be within 1 hour by rail of one another (SF, Oakland, San Jose).

Neither the Denver system or the SLC system had such vision at conception.

I do believe, however, that SLC's system is superior due to being centered around a through spine, while I also believe that no US downtown will so dominate public transportation like the Denver core will between DUS and Civic Station outside of Chicago, NYC, and, Boston.*

*Denver copied Chicago where if you don't go downtown, you can't go anywhere except to ORD. Our light rail even makes a little "loop"
Most of us who have wanted a true metro system have seen the problem develop for years, but as we are practically 'powerless', we have not been able to influence anything. Of course, there is a slight sense of satisfaction realizing all has come out as predicted with a consolation prize being our downtown will be one of the top 10, IMO, in the US by 2025.

[Cirrus]

Gonna have to disagree with you there. BART is exactly like RTD, in that they both try to run lines to every suburban corridor imaginable, while leaving the central city woefully underserved (if you think not having rail on Colfax is bad, check out Geary Blvd). And the proposal to extend BART to San Jose is the worst transit idea this side of Boulder commuter rail; they already have commuter rail, which is already pretty good and could be brought up to BART-like quality for much less than building an entirely new BART line.

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

Gonna have to disagree with you there. BART is exactly like RTD, in that they both try to run lines to every suburban corridor imaginable, while leaving the central city woefully underserved (if you think not having rail on Colfax is bad, check out Geary Blvd). And the proposal to extend BART to San Jose is the worst transit idea this side of Boulder commuter rail; they already have commuter rail, which is already pretty good and could be brought up to BART-like quality for much less than building an entirely new BART line.

Disagree. You have to go back and read the papers about it's creation. The intent was to connect SF, Oakland, and, all communities between Oakland on the East side and SF on the West side to San Jose.

But, as this was conceived in the late '50s and the first section completed by 1972, BART was negotiated with Bay Area cities at the heart of the US auto-craze.

I'll quote a bit of Wikipedia under Bay Area Rapid Transportation. This shows why the original scheme failed.

"In addition to San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa Counties, Santa Clara County, San Mateo County, and Marin County were initially intended to be part of the system. Santa Clara County Supervisors opted out in 1957, preferring instead to build expressways, and in 1961 San Mateo County supervisors voted to leave BART, saying their voters would be paying taxes to carry mainly Santa Clara County residents.[10] Although Marin County originally voted in favor of BART participation at the 88% level, the district-wide tax base was weakened by the withdrawal of San Mateo County. Marin County withdrew in early 1962 because its marginal tax base could not adequately absorb its share of BART's projected cost."

Additions to BART since, including the extension to the SF airport, have been poorly engineered as the broad original vision had been lost, and, extensions were put on piece meal.

The new extension to San Jose right-of-way, etc., is proof of this.

[Cirrus]

The intent was dumb. Building a truly regional rail network is all well and good, but BART wastes money by using expensive subway rail technology for long distance commuter rail corridors, some of which already had nearly-comparable commuter rail lines whose only crime was operating under a different name.

You know why Denver is building commuter rail and light rail along its suburban corridors instead of a third-rail metro system like BART? Because the rest of the country has learned from BART's mistake, that building a third-rail metro system is massive overkill and a giant waste of money if you don't actually need the passenger capacity of a subway, which suburban commuter lines never need. Unless you're running 400-foot-long trains trains every 90 seconds, you don't need that level of investment.

BART's poor conception can be excused as a product of its time. As you say, the auto craze was at its height, and we hadn't figured out we could achieve the same results with less expensive types of rail yet (or rather, we'd forgotten). But to fail to take into account the lessons we've learned since building BART would truly be folly.

No, the proposal to extend BART to San Jose is exactly like the worst of RTD's planning. It's more about satisfying a political base than making an actually sensible transportation decision.

[The Dirt]

I was talking about copying their transit map design.

Trolling: Hurr durr moneyed interests! Hurr durr coastal elitism! Satisfied, 720?

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by Cirrus

You know why Denver is building commuter rail and light rail along its suburban corridors instead of a third-rail metro system like BART? Because the rest of the country has learned from BART's mistake

The rest of the country, IMO, seems not to have learned from what it did correctly. Granted the 3rd rail, aka NYC approach, and, granted the unique track gauge are NOT the best moves, but BART, as originally conceived was the only attempt to integrate a group of large urban centers. The major reason it failed to live up to expectations is simply that too many municipal governments pulled out of the deal, and, the true synergies that a fairly fast commuter train encircling the Bay would have realized.

Instead, virtually all systems built since have been hub and spoke, aka Chicago*, where virtually no interconnectivity built into the light rail/commuter rail layouts. And, like Chicago's hub and spoke system, little time effective interconnectivity has bean built BETWEEN spokes. This lack of inter spoke interconnectivity away from 1 urban station or via street running down a downtown street, IMO, has made most post WWII built transit systems an elaborate downtown development scheme, paid to a disturbing degree, by the suburbs.

No, the proposal to extend BART to San Jose is exactly like the worst of RTD's planning. It's more about satisfying a political base than making an actually sensible transportation decision.

Much of the tragedy of this brilliant experiment lies in the great difference in the right-of-way laid out with the original municipal partners and the mess that has developed since. I am sure that the San Jose leg on the East Side of the Bay would have been laid out far differently in the 1960s than today. The area is far more built up and more freeway dominated.

And, I do agree with you that changes made to complete portions of regional transit systems years after original designs were thrown "out the window" are almost always worse the than original design.

We here in Denver can see this in the W line to the DUS light rail line interface (originally designed to be a 3 track setup) the DUS light rail station which originally was supposed to be right along commuter train platforms, the Commuter Station at DUS which was intended originally to be a through station, and, in the entire Boulder BRT/rail to Denver/rail to Longmont/BRT fiascos.

We know MORE, but HAVE'NT LEARNED MUCH.

*The DC subway is the curious exception

[DenverInfill]

Since this has been fun recently having more interaction among the various Mountain West forumers, let's keep a tally of the progress each of our Mountain West cities is making in densifying their Downtown.

Here are the rules:

1. Pick a point in the geographic center of your downtown and draw a 1.50 mile radius circle. All projects must be inside that circle.

2. A building must be under construction. No matter how recently it may have been completed, or no matter how close it may be to groundbreaking, if it's not actively under construction as of the date of your tally, don't include it. This is for new construction only (no rehabs or adaptive reuse).

3. Projects must be 5 above-ground floors or more. It's not necessary to indicate or organize by use.

Every couple of months or so we'll do an update! I'll get us started.

=========================

Downtown Denver
Date: 2014-02-17
Buildings Under Construction (# Stories): 21, 21, 16, 10, 10, 10, 10, 9, 7, 7, 6, 6, 6, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5, 5
Summary:
5-9 stories: 20
10-14 stories: 4
15-19 stories: 1
20+ stories: 2

Who's next?

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by DenverInfill

Since this has been fun recently having more interaction among the various Mountain West forumers, let's keep a tally of the progress each of our Mountain West cities is making in densifying their Downtown.

Let's see-

Mountain West- metros with over 1,000,000 (the US portion if an international metro area)

Denver
Phoenix?
Tucson?
Salt Lake City
Las Vegas?


Between 500,000 and 1,000,000

Boise
Colorado Springs
Spokane?

Ok, the '?' reflect a question about whether we should consider the cities as being in the Mountain West.

Take away the question marks, and we have.....Salt Lake City and Denver for over 1,000,000; and, Boise and Colorado Springs for over 500,000.

So, we are back to the SLC vs Denver argument for over the 1,000,000 figure.

My personal feeling, INFILL, is that you should go to 6 stories or higher because I like concrete more than the stick wall 5 (and under) garbage much of which will be slums in 40 years.*

*I think that brick cladding will preserve some of these sticklers fairly well. The use of what appears to be painted compressed fiber board or very thin , <.05" pained steel plate, in areas northeast of the Denver Commuter Station already are showing wear. So, if possible, let's stick to pre-stressed concrete or steel curtain wall construction (in Denver I believe that tends to be >5 floors.)

PS Maybe tracking building permits between metro areas might be good.

[DenverInfill]

I included 5 story buildings because there's so much of it being built in not only Denver, but most cities, and they represent a substantial contribution to repairing the urban fabric of cities decimated by parkinglotification. Plus, I don't share in your contempt for stick-built buildings. I think most of them look fine and believe they will likely be perfectly sound and functioning in 50 years. Besides, it's my rules and I want to keep this simple and not have to worry about construction methods.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by Wizened Variations

My personal feeling, INFILL, is that you should go to 6 stories or higher because I like concrete more than the stick wall 5 (and under) garbage much of which will be slums in 40 years.*

This is also completely arbitrary, since different cities will have different code requirements.

Personally, though, I would count 4-story buildings. That is about what it takes, I'd say, if we're assuming 80-foot streets as a rough average, to make a place feel urban in nature. 3-stories is on the edge, and won't do the job on a larger street. But 4-stories almost always does the job of framing the street adequately.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

This is also completely arbitrary, since different cities will have different code requirements.

Personally, though, I would count 4-story buildings. That is about what it takes, I'd say, if we're assuming 80-foot streets as a rough average, to make a place feel urban in nature. 3-stories is on the edge, and won't do the job on a larger street. But 4-stories almost always does the job of framing the street adequately.

Considering you can now build six stories in Denver with five-stories of stick on top of one story of concrete construction, I say the limit should be elventy billion floors.

When were the IBC standards updated to allow for the additional floor in wood-frame construction? It can't have been that long ago.

[RyanD]

Originally Posted by wong21fr

Considering you can now build six stories in Denver with five-stories of stick on top of one story of concrete construction, I say the limit should be elventy billion floors.

When were the IBC standards updated to allow for the additional floor in wood-frame construction? It can't have been that long ago.

I thought you could go up to 7 with stick? 2 floors steel / concrete podium and 5 stick on top.

[wong21fr]

Originally Posted by RyanD

I thought you could go up to 7 with stick? 2 floors steel / concrete podium and 5 stick on top.

Really? That's it interesting. I wonder where the IBC codes draw the line? Can you do four stories of concrete and five stories of stick on top? Or is the limit dependent on seismic restrictions per the ASCE?

[EngiNerd]

Pretty sure its 6 total stories for a podium structure, 5 stories wood framing over a concrete/steel base. I think the limit for purely wood framing based on IBC code is always 5 floors.

BTW, the IBC code says anything over 75' is a high rise...so that's what, 6 stories with roof/penthouse?

EDIT: Technically RyanD is also right though, because we are counting levels above grade...but if you put the grade as level 1, concrete/steel podium as level 2, and then 5 wood framed levels above that, that gets you to 7 total floors.

[DenverInfill]

I chose 5 stories as the minimum instead of 4 stories simply because, at least in Denver's case, there are essentially no 4-story projects out there (I think there was one or two, tops). I assume this is because if you're going to do stick-built multifamily, the additional cost of doing 5 or 6 floors under the applicable building code is minimal compared to only doing 4 floors. I think that's why we're seeing virtually no 4-story projects.

At 3 floors, you start getting into townhomes and rowhomes, which is just too hard to track and there's so damn many of them.

[bunt_q]

Originally Posted by DenverInfill

I chose 5 stories as the minimum instead of 4 stories simply because, at least in Denver's case, there are essentially no 4-story projects out there (I think there was one or two, tops). I assume this is because if you're going to do stick-built multifamily, the additional cost of doing 5 or 6 floors under the applicable building code is minimal compared to only doing 4 floors. I think that's why we're seeing virtually no 4-story projects.

At 3 floors, you start getting into townhomes and rowhomes, which is just too hard to track and there's so damn many of them.

That's city-specific too, though. It wouldn't surprise me if, for example, some other MW cities had zoning codes with a classification that topped out at 4-stories, in which case from an urbanism standpoint, I think those should count. Just trying to make it look to the SLC and Boise boys like we're not trying to stack the deck too heavily in favor of Denver.

[RyanD]

I'm shooting for DI and Newmark right now and we have a healthy amount of tower cranes up. Last I checked, Boise has one which, with the current city tower crane exchange rate, is equivalent to about 6 Denver cranes. So SLC, we have 14 or so tower cranes up at the moment within a 3 mile radius of downtown. If you claim, with no evidence, you are about as big as Denver, I expect at least 10 tower cranes in your skies right now. Self erecting cranes don't count.

[DenverInfill]

Originally Posted by bunt_q

That's city-specific too, though. It wouldn't surprise me if, for example, some other MW cities had zoning codes with a classification that topped out at 4-stories, in which case from an urbanism standpoint, I think those should count. Just trying to make it look to the SLC and Boise boys like we're not trying to stack the deck too heavily in favor of Denver.

Understood. If another Mountain West city shows a significant number of 4-story buildings under construction, then I'm happy to let them use that as their lower threshold.

I'm not trying to stack the deck or make this into a competitive thing. I'm rooting for every MW city to have as much infill as they can support, considering we all probably suffer from too many parking lots, yet have downtowns with good bones.

[RyanD]

Sometimes you just can't rely on another crane to get you up there.. Story of my life..

[DenverInfill]

Originally Posted by SLC Projects

Salt Lake City
Buildings Under Construction (# Stories) 24, Got you beat already.

Nice, but you certainly have more than one building under construction, don't you? Complete the list.

People, I said we all suffer from too many parking lots and we need to repair our urban fabric. I'd like to do this tally so we can see the overall impact of development in each downtown. OK?