Riverside Avondale Is a Streetcar Suburb: Debunking Car Centricism

[thelakelander]

Avondale, like most neighborhoods platted in the early 20th century, was designed as a multimodal friendly district.  So yes, it was designed to appeal to the few automobile owners of that era, along with bicycle, transit, and pedestrian modes.  However, it wasn't designed to accommodate every Tom, Dick and Harry having multiple car households for every residential building product.

What we have today, similar to what FDOT does with their roadway designs, is an environment where we treat the automobile as the top transportation priority.  What we have to do is actually embrace the concept of Complete Streets.  Streets where the automobile isn't placed as a higher priority over alternative modes.  Instead, all modes are treated, planned, implemented, operated, and maintained as equals.

[Ocklawaha]

in 1925 our daily streetcar ridership was roughly equal to the population of the entire city. Again automobiles WERE NOT the dominant or preferred mode of transportation.

It's a simple fact that in 1925, Avondale was designed to appeal to automobile owners.

Yes, in 1920, when Stockton started the project, he knew that the Jacksonville Expressway Authority would doom his streetcar system. THIS is why he would have developed a neighborhood 'designed to appeal to automobile owners.' Just as You, Stephen and I, invested heavily with Steve job's and Bill Gates, because we "knew" that they were about to change our world.

Dan your premise is just wrong. Avondale was a classic 'streetcar neighborhood' and any attempt to paint it differently, is to ignore the historical significance of it's master plan. Once you decide to break with history, you've opened Pandora's box, might as well get ready to become 5-Points/Brooklyn South. As Stephen and Lake have pointed out, the deep pocket chain's will come, and since you want to make it easy for them to ignore the historic mass transit base, adaptive reuse will go right out the window.

Riverside/Avondale/Fairfax, more then ANY OTHER neighborhood's in our city are ideal for a heritage/vintage streetcar system.

[Dashing Dan]

Avondale, like most neighborhoods platted in the early 20th century, was designed as a multimodal friendly district.  So yes, it was designed to appeal to the few automobile owners of that era, along with bicycle, transit, and pedestrian modes.  However, it wasn't designed to accommodate every Tom, Dick and Harry having multiple car households for every residential building product.

What we have today, similar to what FDOT does with their roadway designs, is an environment where we treat the automobile as the top transportation priority.  What we have to do is actually embrace the concept of Complete Streets.  Streets where the automobile isn't placed as a higher priority over alternative modes.  Instead, all modes are treated, planned, implemented, operated, and maintained as equals.

I am in complete agreement with every point that you've made here. 

Prior to WWII, developers were obliged to recognize that the cars of that era were very expensive and far from dependable, so that other travel options would also need to be provided for.

[Dashing Dan]

in 1925 our daily streetcar ridership was roughly equal to the population of the entire city. Again automobiles WERE NOT the dominant or preferred mode of transportation.

It's a simple fact that in 1925, Avondale was designed to appeal to automobile owners.

Dan your premise is just wrong. Avondale was a classic 'streetcar neighborhood' and any attempt to paint it differently, is to ignore the historical significance of it's master plan.

In its day, Avondale was the antithesis of a streetcar neighborhood.

[Dashing Dan]

Thesis -

Although most closely associated with the electric streetcar, the term can be used for any suburb originally built with streetcar-based transit in mind, thus some streetcar suburbs date from the early 19th century. As such, the term is general and one development called a streetcar suburb may vary greatly from others. However, some concepts are generally present in streetcar suburbs, such as straight (often gridiron) street plans and relatively narrow lots.

Antithesis

One noted contrast to the grid plan common in the neighborhood was the distinctive plat of the original Avondale Subdivision developed in 1925.  Designed by noted Ohioan landscape architect, William Pitkin, Avondale reflected a more contemporary residential plan as evident by the use of curvilinear streets, pocket parks, and generous grassy right-of-ways defined by sidewalks and curbs.  Opening during the height of the Florida Land Boon, Avondale was designed to accommodate the growing popularity of the automobile.

[thelakelander]

Avondale, like most neighborhoods platted in the early 20th century, was designed as a multimodal friendly district.  So yes, it was designed to appeal to the few automobile owners of that era, along with bicycle, transit, and pedestrian modes.  However, it wasn't designed to accommodate every Tom, Dick and Harry having multiple car households for every residential building product.

What we have today, similar to what FDOT does with their roadway designs, is an environment where we treat the automobile as the top transportation priority.  What we have to do is actually embrace the concept of Complete Streets.  Streets where the automobile isn't placed as a higher priority over alternative modes.  Instead, all modes are treated, planned, implemented, operated, and maintained as equals.

Meh, I won't even commit to this kind of validation until some produces a slip of paper quoting Stockton as saying he designed the neighborhood to appeal to cars.

Did he also design it to appeal to hovercraft, golf caddies, domesticated ostriches, helicopters and cars regulated through computer chips?  Did he make design the neighborhood to be either google streetview friendly or welcoming to gay couples?

Reverse attribution is a slippery slope.

Here is a post card of Challen Avenue in 1923 from the Florida State Archives collection.  It shows a street with curbs, a sidewalk and a driveway to one of the residences.



In the 1920s, when Avondale was developed, it was more likely that the wealthy would have had an automobile than the average person.  The original Avondale subdivision was considered upscale at the time.  It's not a stretch to say that it was designed to also accommodate the automobile.  However, it was a streetcar neighborhood with a mix of building types within walking distance of each other, cementing the fact that it was multimodal friendly.  Nevertheless, at the time, the streetcar would have been the primary means of travel between various districts of the city.


1816 Avondale Circle before the off-street driveways were added.

[thelakelander]

Isn't the proposed Mellow Mushroom in a commercial district?

Yes.  Telfair Stockton laid it out that way.  One of the commercial buildings Mellow wants to occupy was completed in 1922. 

[thelakelander]

Lakelander said:

I can't wait to bring my two sons over and enjoy a pizza when Mellow opens.  Hopefully, 7-11 can find a space too, so we can enjoy a slurpee afterwards while we loiter in the public park Mellow wants to construct.  Looking forward to seeing more people on the sidewalks and streets.

No need to wait. 3 locations are open and ready to serve you. Be sure and take you  sons during the "family friendly" 10 pm to 2 am happy hour.

Attended the Thursday mtg and couldn't believe how MM stretched the truth. At one time Valentine said he was used to working w/ neighborhoods because the beach location is in a neighborhood. HAH! A neighborhood of commercial establishments maybe but not homes.

As for the attendance at the mtg. The neighbors were respectful. There were a few outbursts and I remember some applause on both sides but no booing. It seemed like a typical neighborhood mtg. But I guess by MJ standards neighbors are to be seen but not heard.

No neighborhood should be asked to absorb drunks peeing, passing out or throwing up in their yards or driving down their streets. Nor should they be expected to have the fabric of their neighborhoods torn apart. 

There is absolutely nothing wrong w/ neighbors opposing commercial intrusion. But on this thread you'd think there was.

The neighborhood is both residential and commercial out of here.  The commercial properties are not 'intruding'.  They are already there and part of the neighborhood.

Yes, the neighborhood, like most from that era, were designed to be mixed use at a pedestrian scale level.  People didn't have to drive into downtown every day for their daily needs.  They could walk around the corner to their neighborhood market, retail shops, restaurants, etc.  In addition, follow the tracks and you'll find industrial uses as well.  Not everyone had to hop on a streetcar or in an automobile to access a place of employment, school, or store on the other side of town.

[Dashing Dan]

Dd you are simply quoting the published opinion of Dr Wood.

http://www.amazon.com/Down-Asphalt-Path-Automobile-American/dp/0231083904

http://www.amazon.com/Streetcar-Suburbs-Process-Growth-1870-1900/dp/0674842111

[thelakelander]

Great points, Lake.

However prior to the automobile street curbs were used to separate and shore up the pedestrian sidewalks.

They were made of octagon pavers and seriously vulnerable to erosion and mud intrusion.  The neighborhood was one of the first to provide universal sidewalks so that society folks didn't have to walk around in horse manure

Sure.  I'm just saying its not inaccurate to say it was designed to accommodate motorized vehicles.  It accommodated automobiles, pedestrians, bicyclist, horses & carriages, and streetcar users.   Those with property along the river could travel by water was well.  The mix of mobility choices allowed for a much greater density and level of street level vibrancy.  If we're looking for transportation solutions, based on history of the built environment, there needs to be a better balance of providing alternative forms of mobility.  The solution can't be autocentric based.

[thelakelander]

Regarding streetcar suburbs and whether they had straight or curvilinear streets, they had both.  It just depended on the context of the development site.

In a greater sense, the streetcar suburbs of the early 20th century worked well for a variety of reasons.

- While most cities grew in a piecemeal fashion, without any real plan for future development, streetcar suburbs were highly planned communities that were organized under single ownership and control. Indeed, they would often be the first such developments in their respective cities.

- Most lots in streetcar suburbs were quite small by post-World War II suburban standards, allowing for a compact and walkable neighborhood, as well as convenient access to public transport (the streetcar line).

- Most streetcar suburbs were laid out in a grid plan, although designers of these suburbs often modified the grid pattern to suit the site context with curvilinear streets. Additionally, most of these pre-automobile suburbs included alleys with a noticeable absence of front-yard driveways.

- In terms of transportation, the streetcar provided the primary means for residents to get to work, shopping, and social activities. Yet, at either end of the streetcar trip, walking remained as the primary means of getting around. As a result, even in these early suburbs, the overall city remained very pedestrian friendly. This was not always the case for other vehicles. It should be noted that, at the turn of the 20th century, the bicycle was also a popular form of mobility for many urban dwellers of the era. (However, when the streetcar rail tracks were encased in the asphalt of a street the resulting trench, for the flanges of the steel wheels, created a dangerous hazard for cyclists, being big enough to trap bicycle wheels but not large enough to get out of easily.)

- Because of the pedestrian-oriented nature of these communities, sidewalks were necessary in order to avoid an unacceptable and muddy walk to the streetcar on an unpaved street. Trees lining the streets were also seen as critical to a healthy and attractive neighborhood. While such developments often occurred on farmland or other cleared sites, the evidence of the street trees planted can be seen today in the large, overarching canopies found in these attractive post-turn-of-the-20th-century communities.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streetcar_suburb

[Ocklawaha]

THIS COULD BE A THING OF BEAUTY, A REASON TO VISIT RIVERSIDE/AVONDALE/FAIRFAX AND A WONDERFUL ASSET TO THE CITY AS A WHOLE. THIS HAS BEEN ON THE BACK BURNER FOR OVER 30 YEARS...



ANSWER!  New Orleans, LA


RESOLUTION!  Portland, OR


RESULTS!  Little Rock, AR


PRESERVATION!  San Francisco, CA


RESTORATION!  Nelson, BC


VINDICATION!  East Troy, WI

[Tonyinchicago]

Ockalawa has posted some very pretty pictures of streetcars  I could not agree more that mass transit is the answer.  But before you start digging up streets for rail, the existing system that is already in place (buses) will need to show a significant increase in customers.  This is done by transit trackers.  Someone earlier in this lengthy thread stated that other cities that have this system only saw a 10% increase in ridership.  Hard to believe but the study may be factual.  You MUST have a bridge between customer and product in the form of transit trackers in this day and tech age.  I use mass transit every day here in Chicago and the trackers are essential to being at my stop and not freezing my ass off.  I can time my elevator ride down out of my building and arrive 1/2 a block away without any wait. 

[thelakelander]

Yeah this is hilarious.  It reminds of Shaq and that reporter during the 2006 NBA Finals.