Charrette: our ideas to change Richmond
by Ross Catrow
This weekend was the downtown Master Plan kickoff and hands on session. Much has been said of it across the internets (particularly here and here). Instead of rehashing what people have already said I thought I would list out some of my group’s (including Joe Kohl of Dover & Kohl. Hey do you guys need a new website? Because I know some guys.) better ideas.
- Reduce the number of lanes on the Manchester Bridge (8th street). In the new space plant some trees and create a pedestrian / bike friendly pathway that overlooks the river — not in the middle of eight lanes of traffic.
- Build a light rail circulator that goes from Carytown down Cary, up to the top of Church Hill (probably by St. Johns), and back down Broad Street. I think we’d also accept a bus circulator but it somehow, either in branding or bus model, needs to be different than the GRTC to avoid “bus stigma.”
- Build something, anything, on the entire city block of parking behind the John Marshall Court building. As an added bonus it’d be great to open up whatever street that is (Clay?) and connect the biotech area to the MCV area.
- Steal / buy back all the land not owned by the city on the river front. It is ridiculous that Dominion owns that huge chunk of land right by the river. Work hard to build a connection between the city and the River (on both sides).
Anything that you’d like to see done to/in the city?
[...] Ross Catrow reports on some specific ideas from the charrette. [...]
reclaim/tear down gilpin? then maybe integrate all the poor people housing all over the city, particularly in the fan. seriously.
i can’t say that i think the light rail circulator thing would be used by many people, but that’s just my opinion/prediction. really, you might compound the carytown parking problem by having people park there and then take the tram thing downtown to work every day. maybe this could be a way to relieve the parking problem downtown?
i wonder if richmond is big enough to have a city symbol, like the saint louis arch, but something that richmond is known for. right now, people outside of richmond think, “that’s the city that smells like sewage when we pass by on 95.” but if you’re going to do it, it’s got to be done right and it’s hard to justify spending millions on a symbol when we have crappy schools and poor people and stuff. but, if it brought in tourism $ maybe? it could even be a building, like the sidney opera house.
Wolf,
One of the guys from Dover & Kohl actually suggested a big monument visible from the 95 bridge over the river. A good idea I think. But yeah, hard to justify when our schools suck the big one.
I mean hey, lets have a bus circulator. Evertyhing in downtown Richmond is 1/4 mile from either Broad St. or Cary St. Really a way for me to get home after I drink a thousand beers in the bottom.
yeah, i could see something being useful on weekend nights, maybe weekend days, but normally i don’t think it would get much use. i could see buses, but the infrastructure for a rail or something would be crazy expensive. i would use those trolleys (richmond use to have one, right?), but that don’t need cables or rails. the ones with the railing on the outside. those are way cooler than buses and perfect for drunk people to hang off of. it could be done privately even?