South Ave Reconstruction

 Back to regular order on this blog, covering some construction projects that I see around the city.

Right around South Ave, near College Town and the South Wedge there's a good amount of heavy machinery tearing up the pavement and diverting traffic.

 

 
 
According to the project page the scope of this project is "... Full depth pavement reconstruction.  Additional improvements will also include new sidewalk, curb, curb ramps, driveway aprons, drainage basins, water main, water services, hydrants, lighting, signals, signing, pavement markings, tree plantings, pedestrian crossing improvements, and bicycle accommodations"

Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this project is the new bicycle infrastructure. The cycle path from the University of Rochester to College Town is being extended further along Elmwood where it will meet with the multi-use path.

 

Intersection of Elmwood and South, from this presentation

 The project is also adding separated bicycle lanes on South Ave north of Highland ave, so around the area of Highland Park.

To add some of my own commentary to the project. I think it's smart to expand the bike network in this area first. University students are less likely to own their own car, so it makes sense to put infrastructure where it is most likely to be used. This connects the University of Rochester to Highland park by bike. In addition the University, Strong Hospital, and nearby Highland Hospital are large job centers for the area. Providing bicycle infrastructure to these areas may mean more people are able to ride bikes to work and reduce the space needed for parking at these locations.

 

 

 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Rochester's Zoning Alignment Project

Image
 Rochester is changing up it's zoning plans from this To this: The new zoning plan will change how land in Rochester is used in accordance with the Placemaking Plan in Rochester 2034 . More development will be allowed in each district, and the map has changed to allow more intensive land use and higher density development. Here is a table of the new districts and the major changes from the old ones: Old Name New Name Comments/Changes R-1 LDR - Low Density Residential Generally single-family housing Minimum lot size decreased to 4000 sqft from 5000 sqft Existing 2-unit buildings allowed R-2 MDR - Medium Density Residential Increases building limits from 2-family to 4-family R-3 HDR - High Density Residential - C-1 BMU - Boutique Mixed Use Multi-family uses allowed C-2 NMU - Neighborhood Mixed Use Craft Production permitted 9000 sqft maximum up from 6000 FMU - Flexible Mixed Use Kind of a new category, few restrictions High density residential, commercial, light industrial allowed C...
Read more

The Ownership Society

Image
I'm just going to start this one by saying that people roping off a section of the natural world and calling it "theirs", aka land ownership, on a society wide basis has proven to be, well, bad. And now that half of you have angrily closed your browser, I'll be happy to explain what I mean to a sympathetic, or at the very least, an intellectually curious audience. A Brief History of Land Use in America If we go back into the mists of time, the idea that you have to pay money, or work for a lord and give him some portion of your produce to live isn't exactly new. Any sufficiently advanced society has some form of money, some form of landlord-tenant relationship. It certainly existed in Roman times, and even in some Native Americans tribes, like the Aztec. The institution of land ownership is pretty similar everywhere, but it has shaped the United States in a pretty unique way. In the early days of colonial America, when native tribes were obliterated by disease and...
Read more

Inner Loop North: Part 3

Image
 This is the post in  this series that I originally wanted to write, I got a little side-tracked by describing the rest of the project. In 1935 the northern part of Rochester looked like this. Actually it pretty much looked like this up until the installation of the inner loop. Call it three slices separated by N. Clinton going northwest, and North street going northeast. Here's a cool historic aerial shot (historicaerials.com) No major changes were made to the street pattern from the 1935 map to the 1951 photograph, maybe there was some major world event diverting our energies at this point? Anyways, focusing on the north. The new inner loop cut around a public school, paved over a solid two blocks of residential housing, curved down to cut in front of a very nice, very large post office, and in doing so cut Franklin Square park in half, the loop curved north again and cannibalized Central Ave, hugging the rail line across the bridge over High Falls, and branched into an inte...
Read more