Project Reborn V3 Cracked Feet
Carlito Austin
The Austin Business Journal provides a first look at renderings for the $68 million, 300-unit StreetLights at Barton Springs apartment building taking some of the space and under construction now. Adjacent to the site, AustinTowers has learned the Hyatt Town Lake is removing a substantial amount of surface parking, and instead building a seven-story parking garage and amenities behind the Sherry Matthews building.
This residential project is next iteration of the Aquaterra condominium project, which fell victim to the lending withdraw of the 2008 recession, re-envisioned as apartments. Dallas-based StreetLights Residential is developing the Barton Springs project and the skeleton should start rising in a few months, with completion in late summer next year.
Next door at the Hyatt, the hotel owners are building a parking garage, that will also house a 25,000-square-foot ballroom and meeting space. Parking has always been a complete zoo there, and this will hopefully make the area much more inviting for people accessing the boat rentals on the shore, or the hotel proper.
Adding additional amenities to the Hyatt could have something to do with the fact that they were one of two authorized helicopter pads for ferrying people from the Circuit of Americas to downtown, but it could just be a play for more event attendance, given the slew of Austin events these days.
As it relates to that, though, this new apartment building could have a healthy portion of tenants who work downtown, and therefore might opt to own a bike, but no car, especially when Car2Go stocks a depot a few feet away at the City of Austin administrative tower.
The bikeway itself is intuitive to use and feels very safe. Because the street is only one lane of car drivers in each direction and the speed limit is just 25 mph, the overall riding environment is pleasant and calm.
On both ends of the project, I was sad to see the same thing our bike network suffers from almost everywhere else: the protected environment erodes quickly into narrow, unprotected bike lanes and then drops to nothing right when all the good destinations appear. On the Multnomah Village side, the project dumps riders onto a narrow, paint-only bike lane (that was full of gravel) as it descends into the shops and cafes where it them becomes a shared-lane environment.
I assume our division of street maintenance and stormwater management into separate bureaucratic silos is partly to blame here, since storm drains would probably have to have been moved away from the corners to allow for a raised crosswalk.
When I used to live in that area, I commuted to downtown and this section was on my route, so I would have used this every day if it existed. Would have been much appreciated, as this was the main sketchy part of my ride. That, and the part where capitol highway turns into that ramp to merge onto Barbur after Hillsdale, but that was just fun for me, I liked recklessly going 35 with traffic. Not for everyone.
Indeed! The city of Milwaukie already completed their portion of Linwood avenue a year or two ago so you can ride it now. The bumps at all the driveways are a little annoying, but like this Capitol Highway project, it is still a huge improvement!
Another good argument against requiring people to ride in the bike facility. It reminds me of a comment in another recent article about the danger of riding in a bike lane that puts you in the door zone, especially when passing a car with large doors and tinted windows.
Porous concrete is great to ride on- check out the MUP along the river on Swan Island south of the Daimler HQ. (I know it does live up to the permeability hype w/o being vacuumed, I am just talking about rollability)
Yeah the driveway cuts really are bad, but I think they are made much worse by the interaction with the sidewalk style paving. The up/down from the cut mixed with the bumps from the sidewalk is a dangerous feeling combination, especially going at speed downhill.
At various points in time, alleys were considered to be seedy and/or dangerous and have fallen in and out of favor depending on factors beyond what I could tell you. But apparently, very few alleys have been constructed in the US post-war, so maybe this all was a long-winded way of agreeing with you.
Thank you for the examples of stroads around the world. It is somehow comforting to see these mistakes occur elsewhere; at least we were not unique in our stupidity. I note that none of your examples show grade separated infrastructure. All of the examples that had cycling infrastructure shared the roadway with the cars at the same grade.
When I think about examples of an throughway that has separated cycle ways and lots of driveways, I think the best example I have personally seen is Jackson School in Hillsboro, but the cross section is about 20+ feet wider than the one for SW Capitol HWY. In this respect it seems like the design is quite novel.
I always felt the same way about the initial caution signs along the 17th Ave bike route south of Sellwood. It inverts Oregon statutes and the responsibility of people driving to stop twice before exiting driveways: Drivers stop once at the sidewalk and once again before entering the roadway.
(d)Operates the bicycle at a speed greater than an ordinary walk when approaching or entering a crosswalk, approaching or crossing a driveway or crossing a curb cut or pedestrian ramp and a motor vehicle is approaching the crosswalk, driveway, curb cut or pedestrian ramp. This paragraph does not require reduced speeds for bicycles at places on sidewalks or other pedestrian ways other than places where the path for pedestrians or bicycle traffic approaches or crosses that for motor vehicle traffic.
12.The Woodward Avenue Esplanade is a public park in the median of Woodward Avenue that opened in 2017. It is the result of a $400,000 investment by Quicken Loans, Inc. to convert the median of Woodward into a gathering place that includes sidewalks, public art installations, seating and other interactive amenities.
14.Opened on September 5, 2017, the $862.9 million Little Caesars Arena is the new home of the Detroit Red Wings (NHL) and the Detroit Pistons (NBA). It is the anchor of a new $2.1 billion sports and entertainment that will include mixed-use neighborhoods with new residential and retail between Downtown and Midtown Detroit.
15.The QLine is a privately operated 3.3-mile modern streetcar line that opened on May 12, 2017. Connecting downtown with Midtown and New Center, the fixed transit system averaged 3,700 riders a day during its first year of operation.
17.Tower cranes reign supreme on the downtown skyline these days. A tower crane for the expansion of One Campus Martius can be seen in the background. Built in 2003, One Campus Maritus is a 16-story landmark office tower overlooking Campus Martius Park. A $95-million, 14-story addition is currently underway to add 310,000-square-feet of office space.
18.A $313 million restoration project is underway on the historic 38-story Book Tower. Abandoned since 1989, it anchors the Washington Boulevard Historic District and was the tallest building in the city when it was completed in 1926. Acquired by Bedrock Real Estate in 2015, the tower will include 95 residential units, 180,000-square-feet of retail and office space and a hotel when it is completed.
19.Purchased in 2016 by The Roxbury Group and Invest Detroit, the Louis Kamper Building is being renovated to maintain 165 affordable senior housing apartment units. As a part of the project, 9,000-square-feet of long-dormant retail will be reactivated. This project was financed with the assistance of low income housing tax credits, historic tax credits and HOME funding.
Fort Peck Lake is 134 miles long, with over 1,500 miles of shoreline. The dam, just west of U.S. Interstate 2 and south of Glasgow, MT, consists of an earthen embankment, an outlet tunnel for releasing stored water, two powerhouses, and 16 gates on a concrete-lined spillway to the west of the dam. During normal operations, USACE releases water through the powerhouse to generate power and balance reservoir levels for other uses. As operations shift to reducing flood risks during periods of high runoff, water also is released through the outlet tunnel and, if needed, USACE dam operators can release more water through the spillway gates.
Fort Peck Dam and Fort Peck Lake provide many benefits to the local and regional public and to the nation. These include reducing the loss of life and property damage from floods, producing hydropower, and providing water intakes for municipal and industrial uses. The storage and release of water also benefits recreation, irrigation, water quality, fish and wildlife, and commercial navigation. USACE began construction of the first powerhouse in 1941 but it was not completed until 1951 due to shortages of supplies and materials during World War II. After USACE completed the second powerhouse in 1961, the dam produces an average 1.1 billion kilowatt hours a year, or enough power to supply a town of 100,000 people.
The public lands and waters of also provide a wide variety of recreational activities, such as fishing, boating, and camping. USACE and several partners (federal, tribal, state, county, and city) operate campgrounds, parks, and marinas on the lake.
The vast size of Fort Peck Lake and its remoteness from major population centers provide a variety of high quality outdoor experiences. Popular activities include camping, boating, fishing, hunting, sight-seeing, picnicking, biking, hiking, photography, watching wildlife and just relaxing.
So many miles of pristine shoreline serve as a haven for those wishing to get away from the stresses of modern life. There are 27 recreation areas located around the reservoir. The areas near and around the dam offer paved roads, electricity, showers, and playgrounds while facilities around the rest of the lake are more primitive with gravel roads, picnic tables and vault toilets. Access roads to many of the remote areas may be impassable in inclement weather.
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