TAMINg THE AUTOMObILE Sigurd Grava Among the many things that are common to Australians and Americans is not so much their affection for automobiles, because the desire to gain increased mobility has been the aspiration of every human being at all times, but rather the next step—the ability to acquire motor vehicles and to use them intensively in their daily lives. In Australia, there are 524 automobiles for each 1,000 residents (2003); in the United States, 465; in the United Kingdom, 451; and in Japan, 441 (2004). (World Road Statistics, 2006, International Road Federation.) Yet it is much safer to be on the road in Australia than in the United States. Traffic fatalities in 2005 per 100,000 population was 14 in the U.S., 8 in Australia, 7 in Japan, and 6 in Britain. (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2007.) Overview The development of the individually controlled, motorized, personal transportation device and its availability to a large portion of the population in advanced countries is one of the significant achievements of the 20th century. It has expanded the reach of its owners at least tenfold, and its attraction has been powerful enough for almost everybody to use it with no regrets. No other device has so changed the way people live, work, and spend their leisure time, or build their cities. Yet for much of the 20th century automobileowning societies have acted like overly doting parents of a child who don’t seeing the child’s shortcomings. There was an awakening starting in the late 1960s, and it became fashionable among the literati and scholars to condemn the vehicle and to envision settlements without cars—just smiling people strolling everywhere to accomplish their errands. The urban situation had, indeed, been brought to the edge of disaster, but the period that we have just lived through should be looked at as a transition phase during which we acquire understanding and learn to act rationally for the greater good.
5
6
7
8
PROPOSAL CU 117
To consider banishing the car entirely or restricting its use severely over large areas is futile, because in a democratic society the people would not stand for it. It would be arrogant social engineering, because the overwhelming majority does not concur. To advocate the banning of cars may be somewhat analogous to advertising aromatherapy treatments—it makes for good copy and is probably harmless, but it may also divert a serious sufferer from seeking competent medical help. And to suppress car use severely even in cities would be wrong because the automobile is a splendid
device—when it is used properly in the appropriate circumstances. People have shown unmistakably that they would rather change their cities and lifestyles than curtail their personal mobility. That should be the lesson for planners and designers. The key toward successful reform, therefore, has to be programs that do not measurably impair livability and convenience for individuals and do not create sudden significant expenditures for households. But that does not mean that bad habits have to be tolerated or that constraints of various kinds cannot be imposed—as long as they are for the common good and that fact is clearly understood by everybody. The delicate matter is to gauge the threshold. Members of a prosperous and free society will simply exercise their option to move away from places that have too many controls that are not to their liking. It is somewhat ironic that this long, apologetic introduction is necessary because the following discussion is based on an attitude that is anathema to prevailing scholarly wisdom, yet it is fully in harmony with what the “real people” believe and act upon instinctively. The premise is that there should be a effort in planning and design to exploit the good qualities of the automobile and advance corrective measures where it falls short (and it certainly does). It is necessary to recognize that human beings are basically selfish and what individuals find personally convenient will often create problems for the entire community. Then, obviously, controls become necessary, and they will be accepted. There is no question that public, communal transportation is important in cities, and significant investments have to be made to expand it and to make it work. Yet, in the United States and Australia, with the best efforts, only a small portion of workers use it for commuting, and even fewer for social and personal purposes. It would, therefore, make sense to pay particular attention to how the other 95% (Commuting in America III, 2006, Transportation Research Board) of urban travel is accommodated. The public transportation part, to use a common analytic characterization, unfortunately falls within the range of a “statistical error” in terms of numbers. There is no question that pedestrian precincts, auto-restricted zones, and “people places” are joyful and attractive environments in many cities. But it is not possible to support and populate too many of them, and, if all such existing or potential improvements were to 2005 Roma Street VIDEO ANALYSIS Vijay Narang
be plotted on the maps of Australia and the United States, they would not be visible in terms of total area. Surely the rest of urban space needs at least a comparable amount of design attention. There is no question that quite a few people cannot drive, should not drive, do not wish to drive, and never will have access to a personal car. They cannot be left behind in any civilized society, and they certainly should be respected as members of their communities. Responsive services have to be available, but that does not mean that their needs have to dominate everybody else’s. But that is another discussion. Let us turn instead to what we should be doing about the automobile, or, more specifically, the motorized individual mobility system, which consists of several elements: 1. There is the vehicle itself (the rolling stock), but we are not mechanical engineers, even though we may have some opinions as to what the motor car should do and be like. 2. There is the roadway network (the infrastructure of channels) on which automobiles move and that permeates all territories, particularly urbanized ones. That is certainly a design and planning matter. 3. There is the support structure of a very large industry—parking lots, gas stations, repair garages, manufacturing plants, dealerships, chop shops, car cemeteries, etc., which we can leave for the time being, since they are secondary elements.
Engines deplete fossil fuels. They certainly do today, and we may be reaching the point where petroleum resources should be reserved for the production of vitally needed products, not to be burned away. But to say that we will run out of fuel is a chimera, an insult to modern chemistry. Machines can run on almost any fuel, ranging from good cognac to camel dung. Many of the early cars were steamers; the Wehrmacht at the end of World War II used liquid distilled from coal and wood chips; biofuels are available today. Electricity generated from renewable sources and hydrogen is waiting in the wings, and it is not inconceivable that some day nuclear power may be available safely in small packages. Of course, all this will cost more, too, because the easy energy resources will be exhausted. But that may be all to the good. Automobiles kill people and injure them. Actually, drivers mostly do that, but human beings will never be perfect operators of machinery. The often dismal statistics are better in advanced countries with more mature drivers, but much of any further improvement will have to be found in hardware. Positive and effective steps have been taken, and occupants of the strengthened capsule could be better protected only by flooding the passenger compartment with foam. The principal highway retrofitting programs today are the addition of crash barriers and other roadside safety devices. Yet, no matter what is done, an abrupt stop from more than 30 miles per hour is likely to cause internal injuries. The so far largely neglected aspect is what a vehicle may do to those outside it. Improved visibility and braking systems that preclude skidding and veering are significant accomplishments, and the next step is likely to be “proximity sensors” that give a warning or even stop the vehicle when it comes too
SITE DOCUMENTATION UQ 119
The Urban Car Over some 100 years, hundreds of car models have been produced and placed on the market. In this trial-and-error process, the consumers have made their free choices, and a single configuration has emerged. While there certainly are a few special types—today it is the sedan, the pickup, and the SUV—the popular models of each type all look about the same, are of similar size, and operate in the same way—whether the price is $12,000 or $120,000. These are not perfect designs, and—as has been noted repeatedly—there are problems, particularly when these vehicles enter dense urban environments. We are not going to throw away our existing city districts (well, not deliberately), so the search has to continue for the perfect “urban car.” Such things have actually been produced from time to time, and imaginative designers have come up with any number of prototypes, but the market has not responded. Some deliberate push in this direction may be effective at this time, particularly because the norm now is multicar households, which may very well include an urban model in their fleets. What should we look for?
Motor vehicles pollute the air. Yes, they certainly did and still do. However, engineers (particular in Japan) have shown that this problem can be controlled and eventually eliminated by advanced technology—better engines and fuels, perhaps radically different from what they have been up to now. There is clear evidence that to remedy this problem by attempts to reduce car use, i.e., vehicle miles traveled, has been ineffective. Yet the air in American and Australian cities today is measurably better than it used to be because of improved hardware. The issue is not whether to eliminate automotive pollution, but when to do it. Zero emissions are possible, and the decision is purely political. Nothing less than complete compliance by automobiles (at least in cities) should be the achievable standard. This has to become an absolute requirement. (The costs will go up slightly.)
2005 Roma Street
TALL BUILIDNG ANALYSIS phil Tilotson
2005 Roma Street
FIGURE GROUND Jade Meyers
2005 Roma Street
TOPOGRAPHY danny Mathis
1 Site sections 2 Railways going underground 3 Railway going over road/river
2005 Roma Street
ROMA STREET STATION PANORAMICS brad Cornish
near to an object. Finland is said to have one of the lowest casualty rates because irresponsible and drunk drivers automatically face jail. Cars consume great amounts of space. That is certainly true, whether they are moving or stationary. It is extremely rare to see five passengers in a five-seat automobile. Families tend to acquire larger vehicles than they actually need. This is not just a matter of prestige and perceived safety; one never knows when a load of supplies will have to be brought home or the extended family will go on a picnic. If the average car could be cut in half, at least 30% new roadway space would be found. But just to say that is wishful thinking. Repeated experience shows that in areas of high demand, any free space will be quickly used up (latent demand), and prosperous people are very reluctant to buy small cars. Here is an area where deliberate controls and inducements are necessary. It takes considerable skill to operate a car. Not so any more. Since the invention of the self-starter, power steering, puncture-proof tires, and a few other devices that simplify operations, the contemporary automobile can be driven by almost anybody who has no significant handicaps (that includes a sense of responsibility). If driving speed does not exceed the reaction time capability of a driver, there should be few problems. Completely user-friendly and fool-proof vehicles are not available (and never will be), but progress is being made, particularly because such programs are now seen by automobile manufacturers as good marketing points. Golf carts are already widely used means of transportation in retirement communities.
1
3
SITE DOCUMENTATION UQ 121
It is expensive to own and operate an automobile. It certainly is, compared with other available transportation modes (except taxis and chauffeur-driven limousines). It is estimated that it costs about $10,280 per year (2005, APTA estimates for an annual use of 20,000 miles) to own and operate a motor vehicle in North America. Yet the convenience that it promises and usually provides outweighs these cost considerations in household budgets. Even in the poorest societies a car will be acquired (after the TV set) as soon as the funds can be accumulated, before they are spent on other large purchases. This year (2007) has recorded the first instances, after gasoline price started to exceed $3.00 per gallon, when Americans seem to have become aware of the costs of driving, but not always in a rational way. For example, a number of families, in order to save on fuel, have added a fuel-efficient vehicle to their fleets, which makes no economic sense whatsoever. There is one basic lesson in all this: automobile-
2
owning individuals have considerable disposable monetary resources, and they are not reluctant to spend money for their own convenience in mobility. All the above provides the base for drafting the specifications for an urban car—a vehicle that will not replace the regular family sedan or SUV for most households but may become the vehicle of choice for drivers who operate primarily within cities and as a replacement for one of the large vehicles of multicar families. Industry estimates indicate that under “normal” circumstances, small cars could represent only 3% of total motor vehicle sales. That is obviously not enough to have any tangible impact and, therefore, some civic and government encouragement will be necessary. The urban car should, thus, be highly maneuverable (perhaps even able to move sideways), light (less than 2,000 pounds), and short (less than 12 feet long, preferably less than 8 feet), with two seats and a luggage space for several shopping bags, powered by electricity or some other nonpolluting engine, have a low center of gravity, with visibility all around, be simple to operate, and probably have an internal speed restrictor (not above 30 miles per hour). Above all, the vehicle will have to look somewhat like an automobile, because very few people have shown any inclination to buy the microcars (or motorized tricycles, or bubble cars) that occasionally have appeared on the market. No such car exists, but there can be no doubt that any competent automotive designer can produce a working prototype. The closest example today is the SMART car (distributed by Mercedes-Benz) available in Europe and Canada, and soon in the United States as well. The basic scenario would be that an individual living and working in a dense city environment, if he or she insists on having a private car, would own such an urban vehicle and keep it in a compact neighborhood facility. If a motor trip to the outside is necessary, the traveler would drive to a peripheral garage to pick up one’s own regular automobile or rent one. Everybody Pays A myth, perpetuated through unthinking practice and ingrained habit, is that a public right of way (a city street, rural road, or highway) is a free commodity, and anybody can enter this public space and use it as he or she sees fit. Such practice perhaps can be tolerated if there are no competing demands, but even then the value and the 2005 Roma Street VIDEO ANALYSIS Andrew d’Occhio
cost of investment should be recognized. In other words, let us charge each vehicle, moving or stationary, for preempting public space that is in high demand. Without going into the legal complexities associated with this concept, the simple matter is that the ice is broken: There are no constitutional obstacles to such fees, and plenty of precedents for public controls exist. Besides all the traffic regulations and controls that constrain individual behavior, there are curbside parking fees and toll roads, bridges, and tunnels. Some decades ago, policemen gave parking tickets to all vehicles along the curbs in New York City in the middle of night about once a month because extended storage of a privately owned appliance on a public street was not permitted without a specific franchise. Many auto-restricted zones have been implemented, some with sizable entry charges (Singapore, London, Stockholm, and soon New York after a failed first try). Also, we now have various electronic and optical devices to deal with the logistics of vehicle identification and fee collection, which just a few years ago were massive obstacles. The proposal, therefore, is to institute a universal user-charge system for motor vehicles city-wide (then region-wide, and a bit later continent-wide). In its full deployment the system would record the presence of any car at any time and location, judge the level of demand in that instance and determine a corresponding fee rate, accumulate all charges for a given vehicle, and bill the owner at the end of the month. To have a car sit on a street in central Brooklyn at 2 AM may cost pennies per hour; if the same car attempts to move on Sixth Avenue near Rockefeller Center at 5 PM, a charge of $10 or more per block may be generated. Special consideration could be given to vehicles that respect community goals (are small, safe, and green), are needed for work purposes, and to owners with clean and safe records or those with low incomes but needing a car to make a living.
The system will cost money to implement and some expenditure to operate, but there are considerable benefits to be gained: (1) Continuous real-time information about traffic conditions on each major street segment would be generated, which can be passed on to travelers and network users to make their own decisions about when, where, and how they wish to move. (2) Municipal traffic managers will finally have an interactive tool to control and guide traffic operations in response to observed conditions. Signal phase adjustments, traffic diversions, dispatching of emergency crews, and other corrective actions will be possible, as needed. (3) Significant amounts of revenue income will be generated, which can be used for good purposes—the improvement of public transportation, for example. (4) There really are no other major programs left to advance as solutions to contemporary urban traffic problems. All that would be in addition to the well-known benefits that smooth and unconstrained traffic flow would generate: efficient speeds, reduced air pollution, ability for emergency and service vehicles to get through, expedited delivery operations, less road rage, space for bicycles and pedestrians, fewer collisions, etc. In other words, the city would be able to operate as it should. Interior Streets In the usual street hierarchies the lowest level facilities, providing access to buildings and properties, but not carrying much traffic, are called local streets and collectors. It would be more appropriate for the discussion here to coin the term “interior� streets to stress the concept that their purpose is to accommodate linkages and activities inside residential neighborhoods (also business and industrial districts, with some modifications). This encompasses not only movements of private vehicles and pedestrians, service vans and bicycles, baby carriages and mail deliverers, garbage trucks and fire engines, but also pipes and wires, which are placed in the same right-of-way. The street has been and could be again a social space for neighborhood activities; it is a vantage point from which the public face of private properties is seen. In ancient days a single channel carried all these functions (admittedly, not always with complete success); with industrialization it became appropriate to provide back alleys for the unsightly services; with motorization it was considered advisable to separate people as much as possible from the dangerous cars. Radburn, the town for the motor age (1929, in northern New Jersey), became
SITE DOCUMENTATION UQ 123
There are, of course, still technical issues in making the overarching system work. However, all the necessary elements already exist (sensors, E-Z passes, transponders, wireless communications links), and it is safe to assume that our electronics/communications wizards can put a system together once they get the go-ahead. (Actually, they have it already conceptually; it just has to be tested in the field.) This may be accomplished by transponders sending signals to a grid of roadside receivers, by recording cars as they cross sensor lines, by having meters in each car that are triggered by external signals from specific sites, or some other method using
devices that have not yet been invented.
2004
PREDOMINANT PATHS Andrew d’Occhio
The adjacent speculative project grew from a nagging discomfort with orthographic representation. These drawings told nothing of architecture. In order to turn angst into urban position, the question was asked, If this isn’t architecture, what is? Could an answer be found not in the inert but perhaps in the ephemeral, in the moment between human and built? In the moment that is a product of sensation, of shadow, of warmth, of smooth, of sour? Is this the reality of architecture, while Euclidean and relative relationships are its distortion? If architecture is human experience, how does a designer, at an urban scale, direct an audience subject to its own whim, will, and desires? A clue was locatd within the project: a tall building incorporating multiple floors of commercial space, a boutique hotel, consumer outlets, recreational amenities, services, and car parking. It was not these program elements themselves, but their required integration with an existing passenger train station, that caused a shift in thinking. A train station behaves as a fixed node in an individual’s journey: From a station one travels to another activity, say work, and later in the day to another, this time a restaurant for lunch. It is possible to suggest that a city’s experience occurs as a byproduct of navigating its point source of activity, each in turn exerting an influence over the direction of one’s path and experience. The nature of this path/activity relationship can be described as magnetic, with an ability to draw paths toward it dependent on its type, density, and patronage. A single café, for instance, if it were the only one within four blocks of a built-up area, might create strong paths toward or by it; if it were one of many within the same block, however, its influence would probably wane. A building housing a civic activity might be the only in the city center and would exert a sustained and substantial influence on local paths traveled. To attempt to influence the major paths experienced, one must strategically position each activity at both urban and architectural scales. With this in mind, each brief element was given a loose rating in terms of its potential influence on local pedestrian paths. The train station, along with the required carparking allocation, rated highly as both an arrival and destination point. In combination with predominant local pedestrian paths, these formed experiential connections with the adjacent field.
the ideal model with its separate system of walkways. Planning literature has lauded and advocated this concept ever since. The time may have come to rethink the idea. If nothing else, it is certainly not cost-effective to build separate channels for different purposes when they are in very light use. Coal and ice deliveries are no longer made to residences, volumes of ash and horse manure do not have to be removed, automobiles do not have to speed the last few hundred feet at the beginning and end of their home-based trips. Children should be able to play in front of their homes and people walk unimpeded and unafraid, and the natural patterns of vegetation growth and water drainage should be respected. It is, therefore, both possible and advisable to think of neighborhoods as safe and green residential enclaves at the human scale of operations. This starts with the recognition that, while walking pace is about 4 mph, motor vehicles have to be slowed down to, let us say, 18 mph within these areas. They become thereby nonthreatening to people, and drivers can stop vehicles immediately when necessary. This is by no means a new idea by itself. Traffic calming and neotraditional designs have been around for several decades. Neotraditional communities as conceived by the so-called new urbanists keep people and vehicles on the same channel but rely on street designs from the 19th century, largely for nostalgic reasons and to achieve interconnectivity. Traffic calming, on the other hand, is the real conceptual base of this discussion. It started in Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark some years ago, but has now become known worldwide, and there are plenty of applications, including retrofits. The idea is that people and vehicles should be able to mix freely—by slowing down all mechanical movements. Cars are not excluded, but they are severely constrained in terms of velocity. Speed-limit signs are not enough; to make sure that some idiot does not violate the integrity of the concept, physical obstacles (speed humps, protrusions, pavement textures, etc.) are added. By this time, there is a wealth of literature and examples of traffic calming, and no further discussion is required here.
PROPOSAL UQ 125
The next step toward sustainability has emerged more recently, and is known as green streets. This concept reacts to the standard practice of paving over much of the land surface (roofs, wide street pavements, driveways) that retards replenishment of ground water by rainfall, conducting runoff into underground pipes and discarding it, and
reducing natural green space in residential environments. The basic idea is to keep rainwater on the site for growing vegetation or local infiltration, thus preserving much of the natural water cycle. This is accomplished by open swales and ditches, restraints on surface flow, and small but many impounding basins. There are maintenance issues, but the concept holds water in more ways than one. Not too many actual examples exist yet, but plenty of low-density designs point in this direction. Literature too is available. The thrust of this discussion is to go a step further yet—to advocate reduced streets (another, rather unfortunate term has also appeared—“skinny streets”), which has not been tried yet in actual practice. It is based on the observation that traffic volumes on local streets are extremely low (perhaps a dozen cars per hour). It is, therefore, absurd to build 28 or 36-foot wide traffic ways, which are expensive and hardly used. One lane should be enough, and, if two vehicles face each other, one of them can pull over. Indeed, even a fully paved lane is not necessary -- two paved tracks spaced for the wheels of automobiles and trucks should suffice. Obviously, there is a need for strong enough surface in the middle and at least on one side to accommodate vehicles that have to veer off the tracks. This auxiliary surface can be porous (paving blocks, for example) with grass growing through. The reduced street represents traffic calming at a basic level, and it can be much greener that the design described above. It is also in violation of land development ordinances and subdivision regulations in just about every American municipality. Presumably this can be changed, and a truly harmonious living environment achieved. A prerequisite for making this concept work is limiting the size of such auto-restricted zones. Motorists will become impatient if they cannot reach streets within a reasonable distance where rapid progress can be made. This is also a significant consideration for service vehicles and especially emergency equipment. Arterials How to handle arterial roadways in well planned cities is the most difficult design problem. They have to accommodate large volumes of motor vehicles, which move quite fast, but they also have to come in close contact with residential and office buildings, with public spaces and major destination points. They are not and they cannot be very people-friendly, because they are basically vehicle facilities. At this level separation 2005 Roma Street VIDEO ANALYSIS Timothy Zeith
is justifiable, but arterials must be directly connected to the adjoining territories they serve. Also, since every city must have quite a few miles of arterials, extraordinary capital expenditures (such as depressing or elevating them) are not reasonable expectations. It appears that the best solution is nothing less than the urban and urbane boulevards that were invented in mid-19th century Paris. Although not designed for motor traffic, they adopt themselves splendidly to contemporary needs and city structures. The basic configuration is a central, multi-lane, two-directional roadway with or without a median, flanked by landscaped separators that accommodate pedestrians, followed by one-directional service roads on each side that provide access to abutting properties. Originally, the boulevard was the focus of community life; today it has to be seen as a separator of districts and neighborhoods because crossing it on foot requires some effort and caution. Also, if it is of adequate width, activities on one side cannot really be seen from the other, and they do not interact very well with each other. The outside edges of a boulevard in a dense city environment will be lined with shops, eating and drinking places, community facilities, and institutions because of accessibility. Thus, such networks define a neighborhood or district structure with the service establishments on their “outside”—a crust. This concept agrees quite well with the residential enclave design described previously. But not every arterial can be a boulevard, not even in Paris. There will have to be a network of regular major streets with the principal task of carrying motor traffic. As the options to provide the various amenities of a landscaped boulevard decrease, the more the presence of people and service establishments have to be minimized on such a street. The result can be an arterial that simply consists of multiple fast lanes. In those cases, good design would introduce buffer strips on both sides and eliminate parallel sidewalks, thus precluding establishments with direct frontages on the arterial. The neighborhoods then become inner-oriented with services placed inside on collector streets. This is the “classical” model of city spatial organization, recommended almost unanimously since the 1930s.
The amount and ferocity of criticism that strip malls have received is massive—they have been called anti-urban, ugly, and unsafe. They can be called anti-urban only in the sense that commercial strips do not follow earlier, well established models. Ugliness is in the eye of the beholder, and, without venturing to explore this aspect in length, there is the Las Vegas aesthetic to consider. Safety certainly is a concern, but several improvements can be added: well separated service roads from the main channel for maneuvers, weaving, and sign reading; carefully designed entry and exit slips; and overpasses at regular intervals for U-turns. Major Highways Limited-access highways respond to the movement needs of fast motorized vehicles almost perfectly, but they also create the heaviest impacts on the urban environment. These facilities were invented and developed in the 20th century, and it is hard to think of any new engineering improvements to the more recent examples that would be useful— except for safety devices and acoustical walls that are now being added in many places. Automobiles and highways (interstates, Autobahnen, autostrada, autoroutes, etc.) are made for each other, and that combination has extended personal mobility to an unprecedented degree in developed counties, with the developing ones trying to catch up. The Interstate Highway System of the United States, which forms a complete network connecting all sizable centers, is credited with having all the essential underpinnings for the most efficient production and distribution system. The problems occur when these highways enter built-up territories. Originally, they were seen as solutions to urban problems and the presence of slums; they turned out to have very serious and destructive impacts on the urban environment. By cutting wide swaths
SITE DOCUMENTATION UQ 127
The Strip Mall Most major roadways radiating out of city centers in North America and Australia are lined with rows of separate business establishments that cater to motorists (or at least expect that their customers will arrive in an automobile) and attempt to draw their attention by large, bold, and colorful signs.
These facilities were never planned as such; they just happened because they respond admirably to contemporary needs for efficient distribution of goods and retail. Functionally, there is not much difference between strolling along a cozy shopping street and looking at shop windows and driving along at a fast clip on these roadways observing signs until sighting one that offers the desired service. The first is a very agreeable experience and one has to hope that it will always be available in civilized cities with a sense of history; the second is most effective in reaching a specific large retail place where a wider choice of goods and better prices will be available than in a mom & pop store. It is a winner, both for shoppers and retailers, but not for moms and pops.
2005 Roma Street
EDUCATION PRECINCTS: Walking time from Roma Street Tim Crashaw RAIlWAy lINE
SCHOOL (PUBLIC)
RAIlWAy STATIoN
COLLEGE (PRIvATE)
SCHool (PRIVATE)
COLLEGE (PUBLIC)
1 Brisbane Grammer School 9 minues 2 2Brisbane Girls Grammer 10 minutes 3 QUT Kelvin Grove Campus 22 minutes 4 Kelvin Grove High 25 minutes 5 QUT Gardens Point Campus 20 minutes 6 QUT Gardens Point Campus 20 minutes 7 UQ Faculty of Dentistry 6 minutes 8 UQ Faculty of Dentistry 6 minutes
2005 Roma Street
POINTS OF INTEREST Yue Meng
GREENFIELDS BROWNFIELDS
2005 Roma Street
CHARACTER STUDY: Housing of the Petrie Terrace + Spring Hill Julian Toomba
2005 Roma Street
RETAIL: BRISBANE TRANSIT CENTER bradley Cornish
The Brisbane Transit Center is made up of three levels of retail and commercial frontages for public access. Level 3 provides interstate travelers with services including coach ticketing ofďŹ ces, car rental, accomodation, and general tourism information. During off peak periods and possible peak hours, the level 3 area becomes inactive with a lack of human activity. Level 2 incorporates food and beverage outlets with food courts occupying the majority of floor space. Several large food chains remain open for later customers, though a majority of businesses close after the late peak period. Level 1 connects the street frontage to rail access for pedestrians. The level is mostly open to allow for high volume movement to and from the rail. Some food and beverage retail is provided, though poorly addressed for public activity. There remains a lack of retail address to Roma Street which adds to the poor entrance to the Transit Center.
for the necessary rights of way (at least 200 feet wide), highways sliced neighborhoods apart, created barriers, and brought noise, air pollution, and vibration to living and working areas, even as the use of automobiles was generally encouraged by the promise of enhanced mobility. New life was supposed to be brought to central business districts; instead, in many cases vitality was drained away to suburban locations. This story of highway evolution is a major and well documented part of recent urban history, and concern over its consequences generated North America’s “highway revolt” of the 1970s in North America. A societal consensus has now been reached that this shall not happen again—that preserving the existing urban environment is more important than accommodating private cars and trucks. So be it: Such policy expressing the wishes of the majority is acceptable and not debatable. Unfortunately, it is not an all-encompassing operative solution, since the 19th- and 20thcentury districts and neighborhoods have to be serviced with contemporary systems and modes. Even with the best public-transit systems in place, vehicle overloads will still be generated. The major urban highways that exist, regardless of the pain that was often associated with their construction, are in full use, frequently beyond capacity. It is an inescapable fact that no city can exist or hope to compete among its peers today without efficient highway service. Despite any philosophical or symbolic concerns, economic and social life in America and Australia runs on rubber tires. That leaves only two basic approaches to allowing dense and old districts to survive and continue in the future. One of them is to
SITE DOCUMENTATION UQ 129
2005 Roma Street
AT GROUND LEVEL Jade Meyers
In response to the rapid growth of the city, consideration is being given to new building sites. Existing infrastructure intersections form such sites, offering in-place transportation networks and the opportunity for development. The project is consequently located within the heart of Brisbane’s transit network and forms part of the Roma Street transit center. Consisting of multiple transportation modes, including bus, train, pedestrian, and car, the transit center forms an integral gateway to accessing the city. Currently it consists of three commercial towers, a block podium base, a trainyard, and a bus station. At ground level it offers confusing and obstructed connections to the street and parklands. On closer view, the selected site is strategically located to the north of the transit towers in an area that straddles the nearby parkland and the trainyard. It is at this point that the current transit center suffers its greatest urban disconnection, with extremely limited visual and pedestrian permeability. The proposal therefore is aimed to gather the loose threads of the city’s main transportation node and realign the missing urban ties. Catering to the expansion of Queensland Rail, the brief is to provide QR with new office space for itself as well as additional commercial office space (all with a five-star energyefficiency rating), a hotel, car parking, and ground-floor retail tenants. Further, the developed brief includes a long-distance arrival hall, gym, and public-gathering space. Focusing on reconnecting the transit center to the parkland and the greater city, the design’s critical component is the development of the ground plane. With a level change of seven floors from the train line to the upper parkland, the ground plane negotiates this change by establishing a public pedestrian zone from which all connections are made. Within this realm exist the differing program lobbies, retail tenants, café tenants, a public amphitheater, and other public spaces. Level changes are encouraged by the offering of public programs and connections to place. The building form is articulated by a balance of building economy and spatial dynamics, allocated to meet the brief requirements and to offer internal public-meeting spaces. The vertical circulation core responds to the movement of the train yard and transforms to become horizontal circulation as it hits the ground
implement automobile entry controls, either as full or selective exclusions or through the imposition of entry fees. Many such programs have been developed and are instituted in many cities, and they tend to become more severe as demand does not decrease. They are also an implicit admission that the central districts are saturated if efficient operations are to be maintained, and a lid has to be placed on any intensification of development. If the previous conclusion is not an acceptable policy for a community, then additional vehicular capacity (at least for service) has to be sought. It could be argued conceptually that in a modern city no point should be further than a mile from a major highway, and that any group of residents beyond, let us say, 100,000 should be touched by a link of a regional network. Given the fact that surface highways of this type have too many negative features and are not politically acceptable, there are only two options if, indeed, such a facility is seriously contemplated. One of them is to go up—build elevated viaducts carrying multi-lane highways. This has been done many times, and there are well known cases, such as Tokyo, Bangkok, and Lagos, as well as any number of American cities. The problems are that these elevated structures are deemed to be visually intrusive and unsightly, the space below them frequently becomes derelict, and the impact of pollution on surrounding properties is still present. It is doubtful that any community today would willingly accept such a facility, or perhaps only if the roadway is enclosed (“tunnel in the sky�) and the tube is incorporated in the manmade or natural landscape through very sensitive design. The other option is to go down. Tunneling is an ancient and expensive art, though modern machinery and procedures have reduced the cost. A highway in a tunnel will have drainage and ventilation problems, but those are mechanical issues. There may be concerns with visibility, lighting, and claustrophobia. The principal point is that such a facility would have no impacts on surface activities, except briefly during the construction phase.
PROPOSAL UQ 131
There is no question that the costs would be high, but not beyond those that previous generations spent on subways, underground railroads, and major tunnels and bridges. The problem in contemporary American cities is that there is little civic and political will to spend resources for significant public-works programs while it is still possible to muddle through and feed on earlier investments. Yet, the 21st century is upon us, and things cannot remain the same as they were.