Cutting Edge May Be Cool, but Not the Best Use of Resources

In my last post, I wrote about how the High Line project in New York City is affecting the conversation about parks in North Bay cities. Some citizens suggest that North Bay cities should be capable of High Line-type projects.  However, the suggestion ignores the uniqueness of both the High Line setting and the deep pockets that were available in Manhattan.  The suggestion also overlooks that North Bay cities are facilitating park improvements that, when measured on a cost per resident basis, aren’t dissimilar from the High Line.

But it’s not only in the small to medium-sized cities where the High Line has undermined rational conversation about park priorities.  Metropolises, which might actually have the resources to chase after the High Line chimera, have also been influenced.  Below, I’ll offer three examples of big city projects that are trying to follow in the footprints of the High Line but which, although I’m sure I’d enjoy visiting the resulting parks, could well become poor uses of resources.

The Garden Bridge in London would be a pedestrian/bicycle crossing of the Thames, with much of the bridge deck dedicated to various forms of greenery, including theme gardens.  After an initial flush of enthusiasm, public ardor for the bridge soon began to fade as costs climbed, security rules were established, and periodic closures for corporate events were suggested as a way to balance the books.

In New York City, a proposed $130 million garden park on piers over the Hudson River has been dubbed “Treasure Island” by citizens.  (If the link doesn’t work, this Google search should have the article as its first result.)  The public response seems uncertain and the funding source isn’t obvious.

Lastly, with an idea that has dual parentage in the High Line and the closing of Times Square to cars, a New York City architecture firm is proposing the conversion of forty blocks of Broadway into a garden belt for pedestrians and bicyclists only.

I think all three of the ideas would create enjoyable places, but I’m not convinced that any would be a good use of funds.  As a comparison, consider South Cove Park on the Hudson River side of Manhattan, near the tip of the island and adjoining Battery Park.  (All the photos are from South Cove Park.)

South Cove Park is a more conventional park, although still expensive because it’s occupying valuable real estate and because construction is always expensive in Manhattan.  Although not cutting edge like the High Line, it’s comfortable, well-used, and seemingly well-loved.  Also, it’s now part of the Big U of parks intended to help protect Manhattan from the surge of climate change-enhanced storms like Sandy.

Overall, South Cove Park may seem unexciting and conventional, but seems a better and less risky model for cities to follow, whether New York City or Santa Rosa, London or Petaluma.  The High Line is fun and creative, but many fun and creative projects are better left as one-offs.

I spent the earlier years of my career in the field of hydroelectric development, at a time that the rules for the permitting of hydroelectric projects were changing greatly.  One afternoon, I chatted about the evolving rules over a beer with an attorney for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  His words about those eager to take advantage of the changing regulatory environment were “Those on the cutting edge often bleed.”

The High Line was a remarkable accomplishment, but attempts of others to seek similarly remarkable outcomes may result in blood at a time we can’t afford to bleed.

For my next post, I’ll return to induced traffic.  It’s a subject on which I’ve touched many times, but remains worthy of revisiting, especially as new information comes forth.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)

Not Being Seduced by the Precedent of the High Line

High Line

Perhaps because I wasn’t yet writing this blog so wasn’t yet attuned to urbanist news, or perhaps because I simply wasn’t paying attention, New York City’s High Line sneaked up on me, both figuratively and literally.

It was a sunny Saturday morning in the summer of 2010.  Several of us had arrived a day earlier for a guys’ week of minor league baseball and hanging out.  To burn time until the last members of the party arrived, we were wandering Greenwich Village and the Meatpacking District.  As we turned a corner, my cousin asked me what I knew about the structure overhead, which seemed to be a mid-air park on a former elevated railroad.

Being a dedicated and informed urbanist, I responded, “Darned if I know.”

Luckily for us, we had lunch a few days later with a niece who was a thorough New Yorker.  (Calling my niece an urbanist would be like calling a fish an advocate of gill breathing.  Despite growing up in a prototypical drivable suburb, she was born to live an urban lifestyle, later moving from New York City to London and then to Berlin where she now lives with her husband and two sons, rarely using the family car, instead using transit, walking, and bicycling to travel within her adopted city.)

After our meal, she took my cousin and me for gelatos and a walk on the High Line.  Lemon gelato has never tasted as good as it did on that day, exploring the High Line and chatting with my niece.  I only regret that I’d left my camera in my hotel room.

I love the High Line and am thrilled that it exists as an example of creative urbanism.

At the same time, I often cringe at how the High Line has distorted the conversation about what’s possible in towns that aren’t New York City.

Several folks have asked me why we can’t do High Line equivalents in North Bay cities.  I generally offer two responses, which may seem mutually exclusive but are both valid, “You’re underestimating the unique circumstances of the High Line” and “How do you know we’re not doing North Bay High Lines?”

On the first, a comment I’ve heard is that what drove the High Line was the vision, with the remainder of the process quickly falling into place once the vision was found.

That suggestion is nonsense.  Yes, the High Line vision was startling and audacious.  All hail the vision.  But the visionaries also had perhaps the best rolodex in the world for civic improvements.  And they rode that rolodex hard, being willing to put other aspects of their life on hold while doing the fundraising.

Thomas Edison said that invention is one percent inspiration and 99 percent perspiration.  If one replaces “inspiration” with “vision”, the same equation can be applied to cutting edge parks.  And the folks behind the High Line showed their willingness to perspire with their tireless fundraising work.

Here in the North Bay, I’ve heard a few ideas that, if not High Line equivalents, are creative and intriguing.  But very few folks have rolodexes the equivalent of the High Line team and even fewer are willing to truly perspire.

Instead, we have folks willing to say “Here’s the vision.  Now someone else can implement.”  It’s an approach that neither understands the reality of the High Line nor can be successful.

On my second point about whether we might already be doing High Lines in the North Bay, it’s instructive to look at some numbers.

The cost of the first two completed High Line phases was $152 million.  The population of New York City is 8.4 million.  Thus, the High Line phases cost $18.10 per city resident.  Obviously, that doesn’t mean that everyone paid that amount.  Instead, much of the total came from large contributions and numerous grants.  But cost per person is a still a good yardstick of the size of a project relative to its community.

Walnut Park in Petaluma

Recently, the Petaluma Service Alliance, a collaboration of seven Petaluma services clubs, completed a facelift to the 130-year-old Walnut Park at the south edge of downtown Petaluma.

(Note: As a member of the Petaluma Recreation Music and Park Commission, I had a role in vetting the Service Alliance work.  There was occasional testiness on both sides during the process, largely as the result of organizational structures that have since been addressed.  I still believe that the facelift could have been even better than it was, but also respect the efforts of the Service Alliance.)

The cash fundraising goal for the project was $122,000.  Including the value of contributed materials and labor, plus the cost of the Parks employees who participated in the construction, it’s possible that the total value of the project may have been close to $250,000.

For the 58,000 people in Petaluma, that would be a cost per person of $4.30.

The cost per person is well less that for the High Line project, but if there were four Walnut Park-type projects, the total would start coming close.  And there are currently two other citizen-driven Petaluma park improvement projects moving toward implementation.  If one more can be added to that tally, Petaluma comes close to matching the High Line as measured by investment per person.

I expect that other North Bay cities can tell similar stories.

At the bottom line, the High Line was a unique opportunity in a unique setting.  Transplanting the idea elsewhere such as the North Bay is likely a dubious idea.  Nor are there many people willing put forth the level of effort expended by the High Line team.

But, if we change how we measure park improvements, the North Bay may still be getting High Line equivalent enhancements.  As the Rolling Stones sang, “You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes well you just might find you get what you need.”

The North Bay isn’t the only place where the lessons of the High Line have been misinterpreted.  Metropolises have also fallen under its false sway.  I’ll share some stories in my next post.

As always, your questions or comments will be appreciated.  Please comment below or email me.  And thanks for reading. - Dave Alden (davealden53@comcast.net)