From the Urban Planners point of view, Max is a streetcar.
A study done about five years ago in Florida suggested that light-rail / streetcar systems may be the only urban redevelopment strategy that we've ever seen reliably succeed - in particular, building stadiums spectacularly doesn't work, which apparently people often suggest. I was going to post links off to that set of studies along with the Oakland article, but I need to go track the original source data again. The most interesting finding from the study was that putting in a streetcar / light-rail system (something running at street grade level, that is effectively increasing the geographic range of walkers) reliably creates local economic activity and concentration. The second most interesting finding was that this works even for very short segments of track - as little as a half mile or some such is enough to start the process rolling.
SF is presently running this set of experiments, having recently installed the Third Street muni line, running from the main in-city subway system down the east (bay) side of the city. The launch was good, but I haven't been closely enough following the development story over the last year. Well, beyond the fact that this is San Francisco, so everyone wants to have their say, whether or not they have anything new to say or whether having their say is likely to increase the likelihood that they'll get what they want.
no subject
A study done about five years ago in Florida suggested that light-rail / streetcar systems may be the only urban redevelopment strategy that we've ever seen reliably succeed - in particular, building stadiums spectacularly doesn't work, which apparently people often suggest. I was going to post links off to that set of studies along with the Oakland article, but I need to go track the original source data again. The most interesting finding from the study was that putting in a streetcar / light-rail system (something running at street grade level, that is effectively increasing the geographic range of walkers) reliably creates local economic activity and concentration. The second most interesting finding was that this works even for very short segments of track - as little as a half mile or some such is enough to start the process rolling.
SF is presently running this set of experiments, having recently installed the Third Street muni line, running from the main in-city subway system down the east (bay) side of the city. The launch was good, but I haven't been closely enough following the development story over the last year. Well, beyond the fact that this is San Francisco, so everyone wants to have their say, whether or not they have anything new to say or whether having their say is likely to increase the likelihood that they'll get what they want.