Negativity... (again)

[Arch]

I posted last week about the effort some people are apparently prepared to make in order to scupper the council recycling scheme....

https://www.cyclechat.net/

Anyway, this week the local press had a feature on the city's 30 year plan. Very grand it is too, with the virtual pedestrianisation (and bike access) of the entire city centre, the creation of new parks (in fact they'll have streets and shops in, but will be very green spaces), moves to integrate the university and the city better, more park and rides, but based in actual country parks that will be destinations in themselves, and better use of the riverside area. A Utopian dream. A big dream, sure, but even if only some of it comes true, it'll be nice.

http://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/business/news/8446245.Vision_for_York_over_next_30_years_revealed/

Anyway, picking a box up from an old chap's house yesterday, he happened to be in his garden and we got talking and I explained about our organisation's move to collect from within the city walls only. He said "They've got this plan, haven't they, they're going to ruin the city centre...."

I boggled a bit, and said I thought it sounded rather nice, and he said "Well, I hope they don't do away with them old shops on Goodramgate".

I assured him that modern planning regs would not allow the council to demolish a row of 13th century shops to put a park in, no.... (Unlike in the 60's, when there were plans to demolish the Shambles, and cover it with concrete box buildings...)

I know not everyone sees Utopia as full of bicycles, but are there really people who think that pedestrianisation and parks are going to 'ruin' a city?

 

[dellzeqq]

I know not everyone sees Utopia as full of bicycles, but are there really people who think that pedestrianisation and parks are going to 'ruin' a city?

you're tempting fate with that one! Remember the Cheltenham Crusader!

 

[upsidedown]

I know not everyone sees Utopia as full of bicycles, but are there really people who think that pedestrianisation and parks are going to 'ruin' a city?

For the perfect example of how to miss the chance to make somewhere pleasant and attractive to go to look no further than Stourbridge town centre.
It is an island completely encircled by a 3 lane ring road. The ring road has an exit that carves it's way directly through the middle of the town. It could easily be pedestrianised as all of the shops have rear access from the ring road but will it ever happen ? Of course not.

 

[Archie_tect]

Mind it must take years to get anything done in York with every inch of excavation uncovering some Iron Age, Roman, Saxon, Viking artefact..... and where do you stop with 'conservation' with such a long and varied history?

 

[Arch]

Mind it must take years to get anything done in York with every inch of excavation uncovering some Iron Age, Roman, Saxon, Viking artefact..... and where do you stop with 'conservation' with such a long and varied history?

Well, that's a PhD question in itself!

I think York copes quite well - there is national policy structure in place so developers know what's expected of them, and the assessment system is pretty efficient. And on the big developments, the dig itself becomes an attraction, like the current Hungate development, which has yielded medieval housing plots, including some built from reused ship timbers apparently.

http://www.dighungate.com/

Anyway, we don't need a lot of excavation in the centre of the city - there are lots of standing buildings ready for redevelopment (including a rather nice one just finished, opposite my flat, in an old Brewery/Warehouse). Utility trenches and so on are ok, they are just digging up land disturbed already.

The new Uni campus extension was very useful as a training dig for the Archaeology department, and led, appropriately for a seat of learning, to the discovery of Britain's oldest preserved brain....

http://www.york.ac.uk/campus-development/expansion/archaeology/

 

[ASC1951]

.
I know not everyone sees Utopia as full of bicycles, but are there really people who think that pedestrianisation and parks are going to 'ruin' a city?

I think it depends how it is done. Barnsley, where I worked, had a busy and prosperous market and a couple of shopping streets with a mix of chain stores and individual traders. The council pedestrianised it all, doubled the price of metered parking and gave planning permission for a huge Morrisons 400 yards from the centre. Morrisons car park is the largest in town and - gosh, what a surprise! - the Council have redesigned the bus drop-offs so that they are all outside Morrisons.

Result - the neat and shiny pedestrian areas have far less footfall, the fixed shops are now all charity shops/travel agents/building societies and half the market traders have gone bust.

 

[phantasmagoriana]

I thought it sounded rather good too! How much of it comes to fruition is another matter entirely...

 

[Arch]

I think it depends how it is done. Barnsley, where I worked, had a busy and prosperous market and a couple of shopping streets with a mix of chain stores and individual traders. The council pedestrianised it all, doubled the price of metered parking and gave planning permission for a huge Morrisons 400 yards from the centre. Morrisons car park is the largest in town and - gosh, what a surprise! - the Council have redesigned the bus drop-offs so that they are all outside Morrisons.

Result - the neat and shiny pedestrian areas have far less footfall, the fixed shops are now all charity shops/travel agents/building societies and half the market traders have gone bust.

True. But York is already fairly pedestrianised, and we have lots of tourists who come to enjoy the ancient city centre (and the shopping - including regular themed markets). It would have to be a really inept scheme to damage that, I think.

 

[Over The Hill]

I hope councils have learnt their lesson from the past. I do rather cringe when I hear of a council's latest grand plan.

Here in sunny Basingstoke we have had our fair share of daft plans to waste money and horrid schemes from the 70s and 80s that are now having to be re-built at vast cost.

In the 60s they filled in the last 5 miles of the Basingstoke canal from the town towards London.
A few years ago some councillor thought it would make Basingstoke the Venice of the south to have the canal again so thousands was spent on a new scheme to get the canal into the town.
Despite the fact that the tunnels are still there but filled with bats, new tunnels are needed, and the M3 motoway cuts through the route. But they still went ahead with plans and studies of the idea, dreaming up how much revenue the idea will bring in with coach loads of people coming to see our fantastic canal.
Finally when the only solution they could find to get accross the motorway was with a new viaduct costing many millions of pounds they put the plan on ice.

 

[Arch]

I thought it sounded rather good too! How much of it comes to fruition is another matter entirely...

Yeah, my colleague and I were talking about it and saying, well, if only some of it comes good, then it's some of a really big plan, as opposed to some of a piddling little bitty plan. Of course, it's dependent on all future changes of council and so on, but what isn't?

How cool would it be, if York could be England's Copenhagen or something.

 

[Arch]

I hope councils have learnt their lesson from the past. I do rather cringe when I hear of a council's latest grand plan.

Here in sunny Basingstoke we have had our fair share of daft plans to waste money and horrid schemes from the 70s and 80s that are now having to be re-built at vast cost.

In the 60s they filled in the last 5 miles of the Basingstoke canal from the town towards London.
A few years ago some councillor thought it would make Basingstoke the Venice of the south to have the canal again so thousands was spent on a new scheme to get the canal into the town.
Despite the fact that the tunnels are still there but filled with bats, new tunnels are needed, and the M3 motoway cuts through the route. But they still went ahead with plans and studies of the idea, dreaming up how much revenue the idea will bring in with coach loads of people coming to see our fantastic canal.
Finally when the only solution they could find to get accross the motorway was with a new viaduct costing many millions of pounds they put the plan on ice.

Did you know...

There was once a scheme to build a motorway, east/west, across Newcastle. Yes, right through the middle. Of course, there are rather a lot of buildings already there, so it was going to be underground.

However, tunnelling for that distance would be hideously expensive, so they thought they might be able to cut and cover - cut a huge cutting, and then cover it over. Of course, to do that, they'd have to demolish the buildings... I think there was a certain degree of concrete madness, post war.

York didn't escape entirely. I mentioned the Shambles before, the quaintest shopping street, possibly in the world, jettied houses that allow brave souls with long arms to shake hands across the top floors.

There was a plan to knock all that down, when they built this:

in order to build more of the same.

Now, I know even that sort of architecture has it fans. And I know a city can't stay cute and Dickensian for ever, and anyway, the past was often brutal and smelly. But how could anyone...

That said, beauty is in the eye and all that. I saw something on telly the other night, comparing the opinion of people from Manchester (I think) and some people from the home counties. The Manchester people were singing the praises of something that had been community designed - flats I think, that had a slightly Dutch style - tall with curly gables and so on. The Home Counties people hated it, and when shown lots of pics preferred thatched cottages and Surbiton semis.

 

[Davidc]

Here there are plans to pedestrianise much of the town centre, and route cars along a new road using a disused railway freight route. I know two people, so there must be loads more, who think pedestrianisation will ruin the centre of the town and think that the feel of the place is better with the busy traffic in it.

My own view is that anything which helps reclaim our towns and cities from the motor vehicle and in particular the car is good. However I and others of like mind do need to be sensitive to those with a contrary view, their carcentric world view is still very common, and they are just as capable of trying to influence policy as we are.

The York scheme sounds interesting. When I've been to York, always as a short term visitor and usually on the train, I've found the traffic there particularly unpleasant. If it costs money it'll have to wait a few years though.

 

[Arch]

The York scheme sounds interesting. When I've been to York, always as a short term visitor and usually on the train, I've found the traffic there particularly unpleasant. If it costs money it'll have to wait a few years though.

Motor traffic in York is rapidly becoming impossible. The city was fairly lucky in WW2 bombing terms, which means that we still have all the narrow higgledy piggledy streets - just not suited to lots of cars, buses, lorries etc. Every junction bungs up at peak hour, and in some cases peak hour seems to run from about 8am to 11am and start again at 3pm...

Walking up from the station you encounter one of the worst bottlenecks - and part of this grand plan is apparently to make a corridor through from the Uni to the station, integrating both more into the city.

We already have a good cycling culture, and also a lot of folk who just cycle, without thinking about it as culture - which is really how it should be. But yes, a lot of people are still wedded to their cars. It's funny, gliding past them, or it would be, if they weren't liable to suddenly turn into the cycle lane to nip down to the next turning (happened tonight).