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There has been a lot of interest in connecting Columbia with Charlotte and the high speed rail network being developed from NYC to Atlanta. I am surprised that there has been little interest in connecting Charleston with Atlanta via Columbia? You would pick up Columbia and Augusta not to mention the sprawling suburbs outside Atlanta such as Covington and Conyers Georgia. Again we are talking about Regional Rail not commuter rail. You would also get other places like Lexington, Orangeburg, Aiken, North Charleston and Summerville to name a few if using existing track. If demand stays constant then you could upgrade the tracks. This is what they did in NC.. the route was popular so now they are upgrading them. NCDOT may also own the tracks. I know the freight carriers would resist any effort to share tracks with even a handful of passengers trains on routes not already shared with Amtrak... but... President Trump may be able to convince them otherwise.........
High speed rail would not have that stop frequency along that route. You'd have a stop in Columbia, Augusta, and Atlanta. That's it. Furthermore, it's a much less direct route than Charlotte, (maybe) Spartanburg, Greenville, and then Atlanta. Either Athens or Gainesville could potentially put in strong bids for stops once this country gets around to doing HSR and it STILL would be a much shorter ride stop time included than routing Charlotte to Atlanta via Columbia and Augusta.
Lots of good small things make cities great, that being said big things can make cities great, too:
This city needs to make a real effort at transforming the street level walkability. There are a number of critical nodes in downtown that are not connected by real walk-able streets, and even the attempts at connection aren't fully there yet.
Lady Street's Huger-to-Assembly streetscape should be extended to Pickens.
Pickens is supposed to receive an upgrade in walkability as part of the Historic Columbia plan, this treatment should be extended all the way from Pendleton to Calhoun.
Taylor and Blanding should receive the same effort as Gervais and Lady in the Vista have so as to connect the Historic Houses area, Benedict and Allen, and by proxy the Commons.
Main's streetscaping from Gervais to Laurel should be extended to Elmwood.
South Main needs a pedestrian upgrade and a higher pace of investment.
Sumter (and all the E-W connections to North Main as well) north of Elmwood needs some unique solutions pronto.
Harden needs a major pedestrian upgrade from Five Points northward, progressively working its way further and further as the city grows and infill happens. However, the initial stretch needs to be Calhoun.
Calhoun also needs pedestrian upgrades.
By the way, generally I mean by pedestrian upgrades that we need to have tree planters, inset parking with crosswalk bays on smaller streets, no parking at all on larger streets, planted medians on larger streets, wide sidewalks, etc.
Parks are another area where this city needs to continue the path that has already been started:
The riverside park needs to happen already.
Finlay park needs to be upgraded, and I've seen posters here and elsewhere talk about removing the post office. Perhaps remove the post office, but please save that building. It's beautiful and could be adaptively reused. Maybe as a permanent home for the farmers market?
Highways / Commuter Inflow:
A freeway into downtown from the south. Columbia's traffic will do nothing but become worse if we don't open up new avenues into the core. Furthermore, as the city grows and office space downtown increases and commuter numbers increase (even as we hopefully house a higher percentage of people downtown, that number will still increase) and development increases in Horrel Hill, etc. that will necessitate a southern freeway. There's plenty of easily eminent domain-able land, so its a game of pick your preferred alignment (I'd personally go with whichever has the least impact on currently developed land by starting at Bluff and 77, going around the developed stuff to the west of Bluff, and then punch thru to the intersection of Bluff and George Rogers where the freeway would end. Or be unique and build an elevated causeway over the railways from 77 and end the freeway at Rosewood and Assembly.
The metro, once it hits 1.2 or 1.3 million in 20-30 years, could support light rail. Three lines would accomplish everything you'd need: one to the northeast along 277 ending at Sandhills, one from the Beltline area (and out to Horrel Hill) all the way thru downtown and then up 126/26 to Irmo, and then one from downtown thru West Columbia to Lexington.
Finlay park needs to be upgraded, and I've seen posters here and elsewhere talk about removing the post office. Perhaps remove the post office, but please save that building. It's beautiful and could be adaptively reused. Maybe as a permanent home for the farmers market?
I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but there's nothing architecturally significant or historic about that building at all. I say demolish it and extend Finlay to give it Assembly Street frontage.
I suppose beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but there's nothing architecturally significant or historic about that building at all. I say demolish it and extend Finlay to give it Assembly Street frontage.
That is a very exceptional statement to make. You don't have to like the post office, but it really is a tremendous example of mid-century modern architecture of a civic structure. Often people do not find utilitarian or brutalist architecture pleasing on the eye, however those designs do play a role in history.
It would cost a fortune to tear down that concrete fortress, and it would create a huge crevice looking fall off next to assembly street. The whole idea of removing the post office falls into the "if money were no obstacle" category. It could be re-purposed/added onto to connect better with the park and create a less automobile-centric place feel on assembly street, but I do not know if the Postal Service has any desire to move from that building.
Lots of good small things make cities great, that being said big things can make cities great, too:
This city needs to make a real effort at transforming the street level walkability. There are a number of critical nodes in downtown that are not connected by real walk-able streets, and even the attempts at connection aren't fully there yet.
Lady Street's Huger-to-Assembly streetscape should be extended to Pickens.
Pickens is supposed to receive an upgrade in walkability as part of the Historic Columbia plan, this treatment should be extended all the way from Pendleton to Calhoun.
Taylor and Blanding should receive the same effort as Gervais and Lady in the Vista have so as to connect the Historic Houses area, Benedict and Allen, and by proxy the Commons.
Main's streetscaping from Gervais to Laurel should be extended to Elmwood.
South Main needs a pedestrian upgrade and a higher pace of investment.
Sumter (and all the E-W connections to North Main as well) north of Elmwood needs some unique solutions pronto.
Harden needs a major pedestrian upgrade from Five Points northward, progressively working its way further and further as the city grows and infill happens. However, the initial stretch needs to be Calhoun.
Calhoun also needs pedestrian upgrades.
By the way, generally I mean by pedestrian upgrades that we need to have tree planters, inset parking with crosswalk bays on smaller streets, no parking at all on larger streets, planted medians on larger streets, wide sidewalks, etc.
Parks are another area where this city needs to continue the path that has already been started:
The riverside park needs to happen already.
Finlay park needs to be upgraded, and I've seen posters here and elsewhere talk about removing the post office. Perhaps remove the post office, but please save that building. It's beautiful and could be adaptively reused. Maybe as a permanent home for the farmers market?
Highways / Commuter Inflow:
A freeway into downtown from the south. Columbia's traffic will do nothing but become worse if we don't open up new avenues into the core. Furthermore, as the city grows and office space downtown increases and commuter numbers increase (even as we hopefully house a higher percentage of people downtown, that number will still increase) and development increases in Horrel Hill, etc. that will necessitate a southern freeway. There's plenty of easily eminent domain-able land, so its a game of pick your preferred alignment (I'd personally go with whichever has the least impact on currently developed land by starting at Bluff and 77, going around the developed stuff to the west of Bluff, and then punch thru to the intersection of Bluff and George Rogers where the freeway would end. Or be unique and build an elevated causeway over the railways from 77 and end the freeway at Rosewood and Assembly.
The metro, once it hits 1.2 or 1.3 million in 20-30 years, could support light rail. Three lines would accomplish everything you'd need: one to the northeast along 277 ending at Sandhills, one from the Beltline area (and out to Horrel Hill) all the way thru downtown and then up 126/26 to Irmo, and then one from downtown thru West Columbia to Lexington.
There were existing plans to do some of what you are outlining.. 277 was to be extended over N. Main around Elmwood Park to I-126 which is similar to your first concept. It was blocked by Elmwood Park folks and the already acquired land turned over to the City which built the Community Garden on River Drive. You can still see the infrastructure for the flyover between Sunset and Bull St along 277.
It was then to continue over the RR Corridor as an elevated viaduct down the to Olympia and on down through the industrial area west of Williams Brice to I-77. So, you were on point with what have been envisioned.. by the time it was up for consideration appetite for inner city highways had waned along with the money in the mid 1970s. Environmental Justice concerns and the bulldozing of minority neighborhoods caused the feds to put the brakes on many of these projects by reallocating the funding. The Vista as we now know it was an industrial wasteland and places like Olympia and even parts of Elmwood Park had many low income renters/residents and the feds and many politicos recognized this and didn't want to fight the growing opposition to taking down peoples homes/neighborhoods (in the case of Elmwood Park.. Historic Preservation was another concern). So these highways never got built....for better or worse depends on our perspective.
As an aside in the case of Elmwood Park.. very few historic homes were threatened by the highway. It in fact would have traveled down the same location as the current RR line that skirts the neighborhood before running into the below grade corridor in the vista. When the city re-aligned that track it used the old highway right of way to build it which eliminated the former route which is now a bike trail into the Vista and also relocated the Amtrak station to its current location from the station now occupied by the Blue Marlin in the Vista.
There were existing plans to do some of what you are outlining.. 277 was to be extended over N. Main around Elmwood Park to I-126 which is similar to your first concept. It was blocked by Elmwood Park folks and the already acquired land turned over to the City which built the Community Garden on River Drive. You can still see the infrastructure for the flyover between Sunset and Bull St along 277.
It was then to continue over the RR Corridor as an elevated viaduct down the to Olympia and on down through the industrial area west of Williams Brice to I-77. So, you were on point with what have been envisioned.. by the time it was up for consideration appetite for inner city highways had waned along with the money in the mid 1970s. Environmental Justice concerns and the bulldozing of minority neighborhoods caused the feds to put the brakes on many of these projects by reallocating the funding. The Vista as we now know it was an industrial wasteland and places like Olympia and even parts of Elmwood Park had many low income renters/residents and the feds and many politicos recognized this and didn't want to fight the growing opposition to taking down peoples homes/neighborhoods (in the case of Elmwood Park.. Historic Preservation was another concern). So these highways never got built....for better or worse depends on our perspective.
As an aside in the case of Elmwood Park.. very few historic homes were threatened by the highway. It in fact would have traveled down the same location as the current RR line that skirts the neighborhood before running into the below grade corridor in the vista. When the city re-aligned that track it used the old highway right of way to build it which eliminated the former route which is now a bike trail into the Vista and also relocated the Amtrak station to its current location from the station now occupied by the Blue Marlin in the Vista.
Yeah people say now having a downtown highway is bad saying it will destroy the city.
My other idea was a riverfront blvd running from 126 to 20 and would have a long running park and Riverside walkway fused together into it. But people here are crying that it will be loud and pollution to have one. I disagree. I believe a parkway from 126 to 20 would take a lot of the 20 traffic off of 126. Same with a 277 to 126 connector and a I77 spur into downtown to the rosewood industrial area by the river. That would take a lot of traffic off the main roads.
That is a very exceptional statement to make. You don't have to like the post office, but it really is a tremendous example of mid-century modern architecture of a civic structure. Often people do not find utilitarian or brutalist architecture pleasing on the eye, however those designs do play a role in history.
You are correct, and Columbia has no shortage of those mid-century modernist/brutalist structures; as a matter of fact, I was surprised by how many Columbia has when I saw a list a couple of years back. The post office isn't a bad-looking building, but I don't think it would be worth preserving if an opportunity to expand Finlay to give it Assembly Street frontage presented itself.
Quote:
It would cost a fortune to tear down that concrete fortress, and it would create a huge crevice looking fall off next to assembly street. The whole idea of removing the post office falls into the "if money were no obstacle" category. It could be re-purposed/added onto to connect better with the park and create a less automobile-centric place feel on assembly street, but I do not know if the Postal Service has any desire to move from that building.
Certainly this is all hypothetical and some engineering would have to take place to make it work but it would be doable.
Yeah people say now having a downtown highway is bad saying it will destroy the city.
My other idea was a riverfront blvd running from 126 to 20 and would have a long running park and Riverside walkway fused together into it. But people here are crying that it will be loud and pollution to have one. I disagree. I believe a parkway from 126 to 20 would take a lot of the 20 traffic off of 126. Same with a 277 to 126 connector and a I77 spur into downtown to the rosewood industrial area by the river. That would take a lot of traffic off the main roads.
The parkway concept is an interesting idea...especially given the location along the water.. Like you said people would rather have it either be natural or have some developer commandeer it for housing.. but I could see where a multi modal parkway (bike, car, and pedestrian) could be useful and interesting if it followed the railroad line
You are correct, and Columbia has no shortage of those mid-century modernist/brutalist structures; as a matter of fact, I was surprised by how many Columbia has when I saw a list a couple of years back. The post office isn't a bad-looking building, but I don't think it would be worth preserving if an opportunity to expand Finlay to give it Assembly Street frontage presented itself.
Certainly this is all hypothetical and some engineering would have to take place to make it work but it would be doable.
You know what? Now that I think about it, I don't know that expanding Finlay Park would really be worth it. There's nothing across the street that would lead to any meaningful connection, the cost of disassembling the structure would probably be high, and the park doesn't suffer from lack of exposure. People definitely know it's there, they just don't want to go because it feels sketchy. Removing the post office is purely aesthetic. I would rather the city spend money on improving the park itself.
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