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A Grand Boulevard for Columbia: Assembly Street Improvements

waccamatt

By waccamatt
in Columbia

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GvilleSC Megalopolis

GvilleSC

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Greenville is aiming to "sink" one of its widest streets, College Street, and connect the two sides with pedestrian bridges. I love the idea and I think this could easily work for Columbia, too. Imagine the experience walking around the area, or even driving through... I think a lot of character could be acheived this way through the ending results. :thumbsup:

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TheSuperPope Whistle-Stop

TheSuperPope

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^^^ Greenville is aiming to "sink" one of its widest streets, College Street, and connect the two sides with pedestrian bridges. I love the idea and I think this could easily work for Columbia, too. Imagine the experience walking around the area, or even driving through... I think a lot of character could be acheived this way through the ending results. :thumbsup:

I love the idea of sunken highways/roads, they're just so damn cool looking. But, I don't really know if its feasible to sink assembly or huger due to the intersections along both of them and the stores/shops/offices fronting them (especially Assembly). But Ped bridges would be really cool.

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waccamatt Town

waccamatt

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I love the idea of sunken highways/roads, they're just so damn cool looking. But, I don't really know if its feasible to sink assembly or huger due to the intersections along both of them and the stores/shops/offices fronting them (especially Assembly). But Ped bridges would be really cool.

If there are adequate traffic lights I really don't see the necessity of pedestrian bridges. The money each ped bridge would cost, could bury about 4-5 blocks of power lines.

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Captain Worley Burg

Captain Worley

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It isn't practical to narrow Assembly because of the traffic flow numbers. The vehicle count is really high on that street. It would be niceto see more buried power/telephone lines. They really mess up the view of the Capitol coming in from North Main.

I was just blue skying with the ped bridges. Columbia has far too many of the things anyway. I like the looks of them, but an engineer never sees a bridge he doesn't like.

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803metlife Hamlet

803metlife

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I don't really see the need for pedestrian bridges on Assembly myself. Streetscaping and narrowing the street (also burying power lines) would be more desirable IMO.

How exactly do sunken roads look anyway? I'm sure I've seen some, but they're not coming readily to mind.

I don't know maybe it's just me I don't care for pedestrian bridges.

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GamecockEngineer Whistle-Stop

GamecockEngineer

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SCDOT and the city are not in favor of pedestrian bridges because it "removes people from the streets". The University's Innovista plan will/has been designed to be pedestrian friendly, which will require either narrowing the streets or providing pedestrian bridges, both of which the city/DOT are opposed to. Narrower streets means less capacity, making the city harder to navigate. I dont entirely agree with the argument that ped. bridges remove activity from the streets, but I can see where they are coming from. Anyway, I think the result in the Innovista design are narrower streets but still with 4 lanes and no pedestrian bridges.

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sojay Whistle-Stop

sojay

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Re crossing large avenues in NYC: absolutely NONE that I'm familiar with are as intimidating as Assembly. The widest I can think of is where Broadway and Columbus ave cross in front of Lincoln Center, and there, the medians are extremely large - small parks, even.

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digital_sandlapper Hamlet

digital_sandlapper

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The only one street that I really advocate narrowing is Assembly, which I think is entirely TOO wide. It can be narrowed without significantly reducing vehicle capacity quite easily. Hampton would be another one, and I would like to see it converted to a two-way street myself.

Right you are, Krazee. We've discussed this at length in the "Greening of Columbia" thread, for anyone interested in reading up on it. We had some great ideas on it, IMO.

Assembly can be easily narrowed into a still-wide boulevard into/out of the city without any loss of capacity. Right now, the 8 to 10+ lanes are overkill. I've never seen a whole block of each lane on this street bumper-to-bumper waiting for the light to change, so losing one lane each way would have no effect on its capacity, and losing 2 each way except at intersections wouldn't hurt either.

Sinking the streets sounds terrible! We definitely don't want to go back to the "Urban Renewal" way of thinking of the 1960s and 70s do we? Heck, no! In fact, many cities--San Francisco and Providence just to name two--are doing the opposite and demolishing those raised and sunken freeways through downtowns in favor of the traditional and beautiful street grids and boulevards to handle traffic. If drivers don't want to slow down for these, then they can just GO ANOTHER ROUTE where they can drive as furiously as they want AWAY from the civilized among us.

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BrasilnSC Hamlet

BrasilnSC

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Assembly St. is only 6 lanes wide, 8 if you include turning lanes, if I'm not mistaken. I still think it is too wide for the traffic we see.

Here is some traffic data for 2005 that I've gathered up. The number of lanes does not include turning lanes.

Source SCDOT: Traffic

Assembly St. ADT (Avg. Daily Traffic)

Elmwood to Taylor St - 20700 - 6 lanes

Taylor St to Gervais - 23800 - 6 lanes

Gervais to Blossom - 22200 - 6 lanes

Blossom to Rosewood - 22000 - 4 lanes (Blossom to Whaley), 6 lanes (Whaley to Rosewood)

In comparison, here is the 2005 ADT for Gervais St. Again, number of lanes not including turn lanes.

Lex. County to Huger - 26100 - 6 lanes (bridge is 4 lanes)

Huger to Assembly - 29700 - 6 lanes rush hour, 4 off-peak(right lanes become parking in the upper Vista)

Assembly to Bull St - 25900 - 4 lanes

Bull St to Harden - 27700 - 4 lanes

Harden to Milwood - 28800 - 4 lanes

From these numbers, it is clear that Gervais St. carries more traffic than Assembly. So, I think Assembly should be modeled after Gervais in the Vista. Get rid of all curbside parking on both sides of the street and the median. Widen the sidewalks and median, keeping 6 lanes of traffic during rush hours. In the evenings and weekends, the right lanes could turn into parking for customers and event goers (perhaps from 10am to 3pm on weekdays also). Even with 4 lanes, from Assembly to Milwood, I think Gervais St handles traffic well.

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digital_sandlapper Hamlet

digital_sandlapper

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Assembly St. is only 6 lanes wide, 8 if you include turning lanes, if I'm not mistaken. I still think it is too wide for the traffic we see.

Here is some traffic data for 2005 that I've gathered up. The number of lanes does not include turning lanes.

Source SCDOT: Traffic

Assembly St. ADT (Avg. Daily Traffic)

Elmwood to Taylor St - 20700 - 6 lanes

Taylor St to Gervais - 23800 - 6 lanes

Gervais to Blossom - 22200 - 6 lanes

Blossom to Rosewood - 22000 - 4 lanes (Blossom to Whaley), 6 lanes (Whaley to Rosewood)

In comparison, here is the 2005 ADT for Gervais St. Again, number of lanes not including turn lanes.

Lex. County to Huger - 26100 - 6 lanes (bridge is 4 lanes)

Huger to Assembly - 29700 - 6 lanes rush hour, 4 off-peak(right lanes become parking in the upper Vista)

Assembly to Bull St - 25900 - 4 lanes

Bull St to Harden - 27700 - 4 lanes

Harden to Milwood - 28800 - 4 lanes

From these numbers, it is clear that Gervais St. carries more traffic than Assembly. So, I think Assembly should be modeled after Gervais in the Vista. Get rid of all curbside parking on both sides of the street and the median. Widen the sidewalks and median, keeping 6 lanes of traffic during rush hours. In the evenings and weekends, the right lanes could turn into parking for customers and event goers (perhaps from 10am to 3pm on weekdays also). Even with 4 lanes, from Assembly to Milwood, I think Gervais St handles traffic well.

Brasil, thanks for all these figures. :thumbsup: Right you are--and this is proof.

I think Assembly could have live oaks down its median, with clusters of palmettos on the ends with flower beds. The median could also have grass, azaleas, and nice wide crosswalks. These crosswalks could even hold a bench or two, trash recepticles, or water fountains. It truly needs to be the "Boulevard of South Carolina", and could an awesome welcome mat into the Capitol City.

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Charleston native Burg

Charleston native

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The only one street that I really advocate narrowing is Assembly, which I think is entirely TOO wide. It can be narrowed without significantly reducing vehicle capacity quite easily...

Obviously you've never tried to park around the USC part of Assembly during classes. ;) I have to disagree here. Bring on more greenery, bury utility lines, install traffic light posts...but please do not narrow the street. This would be a very shortsighted solution. Remember, Assembly is the primary route for football, basketball, and baseball games. You also need to allow for concerts, special events, and current student traffic. Narrowing a street would unnecessarily burden it by decreasing traffic lanes. Also, let's not forget the potential growth and congestion in this corridor that will be stimulated because of Innovista.

Narrowing this street for the sense of aesthetics and slowing traffic is inefficient and costly. Many people who live in the metro area already complain about going through DT...imagine how much worse those complaints would get. Yes, narrow streets prevail in Chas, but they were that way to begin. Just because it works in one city doesn't mean it will work in another.

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krazeeboi Gigalopolis

krazeeboi

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I'm not basing my view of the narrowing of Assembly on Charleston's streets; I'm not proposing that Assembly be THAT narrow. I think two lanes (three at most) in each direction, with some turning lanes, is sufficient for Assembly. Furthermore, the lanes themselves are too wide. And BrasilnSC's stats show that the normal traffic flow along Assembly doesn't warrant all that width. Don't forget, with Innovista comes a slew of new parking garages. Furthermore, while Assembly is certainly a major thoroughfare, Columbia's great grid system ensures that traffic snares won't really be a problem, if done right. From what I hear, the main problems getting through DT is the timing of the lights and the trains, not road capacity.

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