Quote:
Originally Posted by Ant131531
I'm not really sure why some people in Atlanta accept mediocrity under the guise of "Well the current pedestrian experience is bad or there's nothing there anyway so it can't hurt"....why are we not thinking long-term decades from now when the entire area is built out? Short term thinking wasn't the reason Paris became the iconic and beautiful, charming city it is today. Let's not rush building mediocre towers and buildings for short term gain. That's why planning organizations and DRCs exist so that we can eventually have a nice urban environment, not a mediocre one...this is the attitude from the 60s-90s that has made so many American cities mediocre today.
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Do you honestly think this? Paris has been around for a couple 1000 years versus Atlanta which is essentially a city developed after the automobile. Please visit an area of Paris that has developed after 1960. It will be similar to Atlanta in many ways with parking issues and pedestrian access, etc. Even mentioning Paris as a comparision is silly. Please read about Metro Paris and how its trying to battle the automobile and eliminate the nightmare traffic and pedestrian problems with cars and you will see that evey city is the same in many ways. Paris has a huge functioning public transit system and yet many neighborhoods fight the same battles over cars as we do and we essentially do not have a metrowide useful transit system. Central Old Paris is fine but to pretend outside of the precar central area is that different than Atlanta is absurd. Paris fights the same battles daily! There are threads about problems with cars/parking/pedestrians and debates over what to do in Paris in the city section of the forum.
And yes, everything you are romanticizing in Paris was built for that moment/time to be useful then for the citizens (precar world), the charm developed over time not overnight like you seem to think. Give Atlanta 1000 years and visit and see if the charm is not just as enduring. Sorry to sound like an ass but all modern cities fight the same exact issues everywhere in the world. Unlike the US, most of the world has old city sections that existed before the automobile changed every day life so they do have sections that are walking only. If you ask me how to truly make Atlanta great and campion walking then why not completely eliminate some streets and make them pedestrian only throughfares like many Spanish/Latin America cities have. Hell you want to extend 15th street? Why? Make the extension a pedestrian only street with trees and tables and a bike path like many streets in Barcelona instead of just another autocentric street. I see so many on here deride parking decks and then turn around and support extending 15th street and converting 7th and 8th streets to 2 ways. Why not keep them one way, eliminate the other part of the street and make it a huge sidewalk with bike paths? I'll tell you why! Because you want to be able to get in your cars and drive around quicker personally, but then probably you get pissy if people drive also. I can say this without being a hypocrite because I am one of the people who do walk everywhere in the city that I can because I do want to see Atlanta change. I walk 4 miles everynight just to the gym and back (thats how I know about the Hyatt House curb cut) and 2 miles to buy groceries in Grant Park when i just need a couple pantry items and such eventhough I am part of a 2-car household. You want to really see Atlanta change, then push the Midtown Alliance to truly start making grand pedestran only streets instead of focusing on parking decks and curbs. Dont convert the streets to 2 ways keep them 1 way and start eliminating the other lane and make these grand boulevards for people and not cars through the neighborhoods!
Get real and dont be so delusional and blindly think that all growing modern cities arent facing the same exact issues. Hell start with some of the unimportant/secondary streets and completely block them off from automobiles and let people discover how nice it is to walk a couple blocks.
Fairlie Popular downtown would be a great area to start converting sections of the city to pedestrian only and if midtown really wanted to change it could have done the same with all the 2 way conversions going on. There was nothing wrong with the one way streets, changing them to 2 ways does nothing to get people out of their cars AT ALL! It just encourages more driving, why not protest these conversions and push the alliance to put up barriers and make part of the street for walking only. Thats what Ga Tech, Georgia, Mercer, UWG and many of the universities started doing 15 years ago to eliminate cars. They just blocked the streets with ugly concrete planters. Now visit these campuses where over the past decade, they've ripped the streets out and put beautiful tree lined brick/concrete pedestrian/biking boulevards where they were once streets and cars. That changed the entire environment of the campuses. Midtown could have made a real change and did the same on all the secondary streets that are now just busy with 2 way traffic doing nothing that encouraged people to get out of their cars really by converting the streets. If you really want to see midtown change then why not push for the elimination of 1 lane the entire length of 15th street for pedestrian only access. Geez, isnt that exactly what the beltline is? Why cant we do that on many of the one way streets throughout the city. If its one way but 2 lanes and is a secondary street, why cant we take away a lane and make it pedestrian use only and then as streets are repaved and sidewalks rebuilt, the section could be upgraded with more trees, a bike lane, park benches, trash cans, etc. Thats all Paris has done that you romanticize. Thats what will make Atlanta a different place. The curb cuts and parking decks arent the issue. Your concept of what will make Atlanta better I consider shortsighted and mediocre to the real solution.
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