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(note the case we are discussing, in Huntington, currently has on street parking, and someone proposed removing it in favor of more traffic lanes NOT in favor of wider sidewalks, which AFAICT are not really needed for the volume of pedestrian traffic in that location)
Just for the sake of clarity, I didn't propose removing it to add more traffic lanes. 25A has an adequate number of traffic lanes and adding more for a half mile stretch would only cause congestion when the cars passed the Village and needed to marge back.
My gripe with on street parking on major roads has nothing to do with wanting more lanes. It's that the flow of traffic gets slowed down when people open the driver side doors into traffic, take their sweet time loading and unloading cars, or when a car attempting to park will stop to wait for a parking space to open up (or, take a long time maneuvering into a parallel parking space).
Also, for the record, I like Huntington and was not making a serious proposal--don't fix things that aren't broken is my attitude. However, for the sake of daydreaming, if the on-street parking on 25A was removed I would be in favor of using the extra space for wider sidewalks, with room for outdoor cafes here and there. And I would only be in favor of removing parking spaces if extra parking was built underground or in the immediate vicinity. After all, having parking of some sort is vital--having outdoor cafes is not.
Just for the sake of clarity, I didn't propose removing it to add more traffic lanes. 25A has an adequate number of traffic lanes and adding more for a half mile stretch would only cause congestion when the cars passed the Village and needed to marge back.
My gripe with on street parking on major roads has nothing to do with wanting more lanes. It's that the flow of traffic gets slowed down when people open the driver side doors into traffic, take their sweet time loading and unloading cars, or when a car attempting to park will stop to wait for a parking space to open up (or, take a long time maneuvering into a parallel parking space).
Also, for the record, I like Huntington and was not making a serious proposal--don't fix things that aren't broken is my attitude. However, for the sake of daydreaming, if the on-street parking on 25A was removed I would be in favor of using the extra space for wider sidewalks, with room for outdoor cafes here and there. And I would only be in favor of removing parking spaces if extra parking was built underground or in the immediate vicinity. After all, having parking of some sort is vital--having outdoor cafes is not.
So they would make the non-trivial investment in sidewalk widening, and build an UNDERGROUND parking garage (and subsidize it enough so that the rates don't cause it to be very underutilized) in an area where AFAIK the sidewalks aren't particularly crowded - so there can be more outdoor cafes (in an area with a cold climate several months of the year - I mean I like to walk in the cold, but sitting and eating is something else) and so that drivers don't have to be inconvenienced while folks pull into a spot and get out of their cars. I am glad you didn't mean that seriously.
Just for the sake of clarity, I didn't propose removing it to add more traffic lanes. 25A has an adequate number of traffic lanes and adding more for a half mile stretch would only cause congestion when the cars passed the Village and needed to marge back.
My gripe with on street parking on major roads has nothing to do with wanting more lanes. It's that the flow of traffic gets slowed down when people open the driver side doors into traffic, take their sweet time loading and unloading cars, or when a car attempting to park will stop to wait for a parking space to open up (or, take a long time maneuvering into a parallel parking space).
Also, for the record, I like Huntington and was not making a serious proposal--don't fix things that aren't broken is my attitude. However, for the sake of daydreaming, if the on-street parking on 25A was removed I would be in favor of using the extra space for wider sidewalks, with room for outdoor cafes here and there. And I would only be in favor of removing parking spaces if extra parking was built underground or in the immediate vicinity. After all, having parking of some sort is vital--having outdoor cafes is not.
I have noticed the people parallel parking cause random slow downs on Route 25A and 110. Worse are the double parkers. The locals are kinda used to it, and few are going through huntington village for anything more than local travel (max 10-15 miles or so). Your greenport to huntington journey on 25A the exception, which sounds really slowgoing, though more scenic than any other east-west island route.
Garages are more likely than underground parking. One of the towns I'm familiar with in Western MA uses garages instead of surface lots:
The garages minimize the land used for parking. My thought is that Huntington was smaller until suburbanization, so there was more vacant space for surface parking. I doubt they would spend the money now for a garage.
and look! there's farmland right near the town center! compared to huntington at the same scale:
huntington uses an much higher amount of land as surface parking, almost the same amount of land is taken up by buildings as parking lots. The housing surrounded it is much less dense. And then some small city centers at the same scale:
Reston uses the bypass model you suggested. The main state highways surrounded the town center and they're much wider (and difficult for pedestrians to cross). Though, from your photos, your area is much more pedestrian friendly than I would have guessed from the view. The town center, like the residential neighborhoods look more like isolated developments off the main throughfare. The development around Huntington seems more interconnected in the layout. I feel like this keeps the town center more "central" to the community. Your example of Harriet Lane is a bit far from Huntington Village. Park Ave is a bit of separator, though the residential street might not be that dangerous. There's no sidewalk, but you could jump onto a lawn when a car is coming. I might have a higher comfort level with traffic than most, though.
My thoughts on what could improve Huntington:
1) Denser housing near the center. Tearing out old single family homes and building new ones on smaller lots is unlikely, so apartment complexes would be necessary.
2) Densify the area by the train station. There's a very well used train station a mile to the south but not much nearby. It should have at least stores adjancent to it. If there was a way for a secondary village to built around the train station in a way that feels connected to the old one, that would be good. I read somewhere that used to be the case.
The town is rather anti-densification, so I dunno if that's possible. And since the town is mostly auto-centric, this might overwhelm the road system and parking capacity.
The main state highways surrounded the town center and they're much wider (and difficult for pedestrians to cross). Though, from your photos, your area is much more pedestrian friendly than I would have guessed from the view.
Very true, sometimes it's hard to gauge an area just by photos. One problem with things like overhead views is they don't show pedestrian tunnels. Reston has plenty of signal lights, as well, and many pedestrians use them to cross Reston Parkway. But I like the the tunnel that leads to Barnes and Noble--talk about a good store to have right next to a tunnel!
Interesting comments about how wide roads can make a town center appear isolated. It doesn't work out that way in reality, but I can see how it might appear that way. The reason it's connected to the neighborhood probably has to do with the fact that it really functions as the center of town. It's the place people go if they just want to hang out, and it has events every weekend as well as ice skating, so the people who live nearby are in the habit of walking over there when they're looking for something to do. Also, we have lots and lots of roads like that in this area, so they don't seem unusually wide to us. Even people from the hospital walk over to to the town center--and they have to cross at the cross walk (no tunnel from the hospital, although that would be a nice thing to add someday). It's just not a big deal when you're used to them. There are also a great number of apartments and condos right in the town center, which may be part of the reason it seems well connected it with the rest of the town.
There's also a large group of people like me, who have to drive but still go regularly to hang out. As a driver I appreciate that I can zip right down Fairfax County Parkway and get there easily, but it's true that the payoff for that is wide roads which add a different ambiance. Reston Town Center definitely does not have a village ambiance like Huntington does--it works for Reston but I'd hate to see Huntington lose that.
Getting back to Huntington, I like your idea about putting more stores near the train station. I think they would get a lot of business from people stopping to pick up something after getting off the train (or from people waiting for the train). OTOH, maybe there are factors that would make it unattractive? I don't know what those factors would be, but I've never figured out a mystery about my brother in law's restaurant near the Syosset station. Why did it fail? I thought for sure he would get a lot of customers from being so close to the train station, but it didn't work out that way. I never knew why, it seemed like a great ida to me, and still does. It was a nice, inexpensive restaurant and even had a nice little bar area. To this day I don't know why it wasn't attractive to people getting off a train and meeting people.
Boulder also has relatively dense housing outside its center, which is obviously larger than Huntingtons'. And less parking
Do not use Boulder as a role model for any kind of traffic management. Less parking, yes; a street system that makes driving difficult, yes; but at least one registered vehicle per person, and no reduction in driving due to the above.
Do not use Boulder as a role model for any kind of traffic management. Less parking, yes; a street system that makes driving difficult, yes; but at least one registered vehicle per person, and no reduction in driving due to the above.
I wasn't soley interested in traffic management, I was comparing layout for a cohesive center and space used for parking. As I said, I think a good pedestrian downtown (if sizeable) will tend to be congested with traffic.
What is so unusual about the street system? Perhaps if you're used something wide roads and a more suburban style it's unusual. I don't think the Northampton, MA or the Huntington, NY examples are any better for driving; they're just at a smaller scale.
I don't care much about the traffic in my downtown since I usually walk or bike to it. If you drive to a downtown, at least you only need to park once rather than re-drive to get to a different part. I had a friend in lived in Boulder for a few years; she was without a car.
I wasn't soley interested in traffic management, I was comparing layout for a cohesive center and space used for parking. As I said, I think a good pedestrian downtown (if sizeable) will tend to be congested with traffic.
What is so unusual about the street system? Perhaps if you're used something wide roads and a more suburban style it's unusual. I don't think the Northampton, MA or the Huntington, NY examples are any better for driving; they're just at a smaller scale.
I don't care much about the traffic in my downtown since I usually walk or bike to it. If you drive to a downtown, at least you only need to park once rather than re-drive to get to a different part. I had a friend in lived in Boulder for a few years; she was without a car.
The street system is a mess for many reasons, and I did not say "unusual".
The major streets are plenty wide, generally two lanes each direction with lots of additional turning lanes. However, there are barriers/medians in lots of places to make it impossible to turn left when you might want to, so you have to sometimes go several blocks out of your way to get to your destination; three major highways are routed through town instead of building some sort of a bypass, including Highways 93/7 going up Broadway through the CU campus where there are all sorts of cars, buses, delivery trucks, pedestrians and bikers, some of whom do not obey the traffic laws. Lots of traffic lights that seem poorly timed, students and others out drving all day long, etc. You can live carless in Boulder, but that has nothing to do with how hard they make it to drive there.
Interesting comments about how wide roads can make a town center appear isolated. It doesn't work out that way in reality, but I can see how it might appear that way
I recently walked around Fairfax Corners (a smaller lifestyle center), and I did find that wide roads served as a barrier. My strong sense is that they often do around here (by around here I mean NoVa in general not Reston Town Center in particular). And that many folks do not care for walking in underground pedestrian tunnels (though I am not familiar with the ones in Reston) While I cannot rule out that people walk across or under those boulevards (I have never checked them out myself), my own impression is that RTC A. Gets a fair amount of its bustle from the high density residential that is closer and B. That lots of people drive there (it has extensive free parking, both surface lots and garages).
So while a strong enough activity center may draw pedestrians across wide, heavily trafficed road, and pedestrian tunnels and bridges can add a useful option, I think narrower roads still make for a better pedestrian environment, and less of a barrier even here in Northern Virginia. So there is still a trade off.
I recently walked around Fairfax Corners (a smaller lifestyle center), and I did find that wide roads served as a barrier.
I'm glad you had a nice time walking around Fairfax Corners. I like that Town Center too (sorry, I just can't bring myself to call it a lifestyle center LOL LOL ) I do wonder, though, if a visitor to an area is the best judge of whether or not the roads are barriers to local residents. What looks like a barrier to you might not actually be one. I have friends who have a condo there and don't seem to find it a problem. However, different strokes for different folks. Those that like narrower roads can find them in your part of Nova. Those who like the wider roads can find them out in my area. Something for everyone.
An interesting comparison might be King Street in Leesburg vs. Reston Town Center.
King Street:
Reston Town Center:
I love both areas very much and spend quite a bit of time in both (since I live between them). You can see their differences--one is historic, the other contemporary. They also have many similarities. Both are town centers that have numerous festivals. In addition, King Street has "First Friday" events every month. Both have restaurants, bars, and shops. King Street gets a lot of business from the County Courthouse which is right there; RTC gets business from local office buildings. King Street is also a tourist attraction due to it's quaint historic buildings. Both have residents who live above the stores or the next street over.
Yet....
King Street does not attract anywhere near the number of pedestrians that Reston Town Center does. We've had several discussion on the Nova forum about how to attract more pedestrians to King Street. Businesses have a tough time there, and there's a high turnover in those cute little restaurants. And it's a shame because it's a really cute area and has more than adequate parking in a nearby garage. Meanwhile, Reston Town Center is thriving and has pedestrians a mundo no matter when you go there. I'm sure that there's more going on here than just wide roads, but it does illustrate that wide roads are not keeping pedestrians away.
The same is true of other town centers closer to King Street. In fact, it might be better to do a comparison that doesn't include Reston Town Center since that's a huge success. You've given me an interesting idea for a photo tour that would better compare apples to apples: a contrast and comparison of King Street vs. Villages of Leesburg, which is new Town Center just down the road from King Street. Hmm, maybe I'll do that today. That way we can compare photos taken on the same day at roughly the same time of day, and in the same geographic area.
Last edited by Caladium; 12-28-2011 at 12:02 PM..
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) I do wonder, though, if a visitor to an area is the best judge of whether or not the roads are barriers to local residents. What looks like a barrier to you might not actually be one. I have friends who have a condo there and don't seem to find it a problem. However, different strokes for different folks. Those that like narrower roads can find them in your part of Nova. Those who like the wider roads can find them out in my area. Something for everyone. 
