throwuascenario

On 6/3/2024 at 9:44 PM, tBBP said:

 

Two points:

 

1.) Cities were dense and walkable before freeways existed, and many of those freeways have caused the opposite in several places. Now yes, one tangible benefit to freeways passing through urban cores could be the amount of passers-thru who may see a downtown (or Uptown in the case of Charlotte) that they otherwise would not see—translation: tourism. But the real benefit was to the better-to-do people who could travel quickly between downtowns and their homes, which around 1956 or so became increasingly further away from city centers (and the increasing amount of projects and slums contained therein) and out in the then-new (and still continuing) suburban developments. If anything, due to the right-of-way it requires to build a freeway, one could argue that some downtowns may be less dense than they would be if they were not cut up by freeways. Which serves as a nice segue to my next point...

 

2.) Study the way things are done in most of western Europe By and large, most major cities are not cut up by freeways running right through their cores. Just about all of them have a ring freeway or a series of freeways that may form a ring around the city core. Some may have spur routes into or toward the city center, but they don't pass right through like here in the U.S. And Lord knows many of those cities are super dense and walkable in their cores. (Of course, attitudes towards public transit in Europe and Asia are far more progressive than in the States, which adds to the connectivity factor.) There is a reason, after all, Boston undertook the big dig: to reestablish the connectivity and some of the density that was lost due to running I-93 through there. 

 

As for development, there's many different types of that, for different purposes. But one thing that's becoming increasingly clear to me as far as U.S. cities go is this: many of them have some jacked-up zoning laws. (Or in the case of Houston, virtually no zoning laws at all, which is how you have commercial warehouses and pipe plants but right up against residential neighborhoods with no buffer to speak of.) As far as accessibility is concerned, true, developments such as commercial supply points do tend to set up near freeways, for easier truck access. I definitely agree on that (and of course experienced it firsthand over the course of the past thirteen years). But if anything, freeways have zapped a lot of commerce and life out of city centers rather than the other way around—and again, owing to all those sprawling suburban developments like shopping malls, town centers, office parks and the like. A good number of those are increasingly becoming emptier now, especially the office parks (though to be fair the pandemic exacerbated a lot of that). So what does that tell us?

To points 1 and 2:

Yes, that is why I clarified that it is necessary to have a highway connection to an urban core if cars are the predominant mode of transportation in the city. That is why early 20th century US cities could be dense anyways, that is why European cities can be dense anyways, and that is why even a select few US cities (like NYC and Boston) can be dense anyways. Because people will still find other methods to get to the urban core even if it isn't convenient to do so by car.

This is not so in the vast majority of US cities. People will not go to downtown Indianapolis or Cleveland or Oklahoma City or Detroit if it isn't easy to do so by car. They will simply develop other places that are easy to get to by car and abandon the downtowns.

Your timeline is also backwards. These cities didn't add urban freeways and then become car dependent. They became car dependent first and then added the highways. Cars were the dominant mode of transportation in most US cities well before the interstate came through them. And in almost all cases, the downtowns of all of these cities were being gradually abandoned until the interstate came along. I seriously doubt you could find more than 5 cities in the entire country whose downtown cores are worse off now than they were in the late 60's / early 70's.

I do agree that zoning laws are bad in the US, but I think you have it backwards. I think they are too restrictive, not too lenient as you imply. Before zoning laws, mixed use areas developed naturally. Now with all of the zoning nonsense, shopping has to be in one area, single family homes in another, etc. This serious decreases walkability and increases car dependence.

I think you are misassigning blame here. Cars have decreased density in US cities, not freeways. Freeways into downtown areas allow cars to act as much like the public transit that was there previously as possible, but obviously still don't replicate them.

Getting rid of urban highways won't magically make people stop using cars, they will just follow the highway wherever it does go.

2 hours ago, tBBP said:

The larger point though hits at why, way back when, urban planners—led by Moses—though it best to plow freeways straight through city centers. Simply put: ease and convenience. Get into downtowns quicker, get out of downtowns quicker. One of the major issues with that approach however is the sheer number of black, brown, immigrant and poorer white families that got displaced in the process. (That's for another thread in another forum, though.) Add that to the burgeoning auto industry at the time (along with a few other factors I won't get into here because—again—that's for another thread in another forum) and it became quite the matrix of an autocentric complex that led to what we have today: cities fragmented by freeways and lifestyles largely if not entirely centered around the automobile. Some are way worse off than others (like here in Little Rock). With the benefit of hindsight we have today, several city/metros have realized the damage that concrete rivers have caused and have invested in "reversing course", so to speak. Boston's Big Dig is probably the best example, but it ain't the only one. Seattle just tore down the old Alaskan Way Viaduct and replaced it with something like a tunnel. Some cities are exploring decking over freeways to reconnect neighborhoods that got sliced up by freeways. (They're talking about doing that here...it'll be the miracle of all miracles if it ever happens.)

 

We're in agreement that an autocentric society isn't ideal. But if we hadn't put highways through cities, they wouldn't have magically reverted to being dense, walkable areas. They would have been pretty much abandoned in favor of development in places that were easier to access.

My point is that if we let our urban cores die due to lack of access, it will only make metros more sprawly, less dense, and more autocentric.

On 5/30/2024 at 3:33 AM, Sykotyk said:

But that lag caused them to get the 'basics' inside cities first. Connecting east to west, north to south inside cities as they started more suburban/urban routes there was much more push back as they had seen what had been done elsewhere in the city. Honestly, freeways should've gone between cities until they hit the 'circle bypass' of a city and essentially stop. Maybe a spur toward downtown but the downtown be freeway-free. Shunting all through traffic around the city to keep on non-stop roads.

 

This sounds like it would be beneficial to the city, but is pretty much be a death sentence to a downtown core.  In a city where cars are the primary mode of transportation (so almost all US cities), the downtown core needs to be at least almost as easy to get to as anywhere else or else no one will go there, live there, or put offices there. Almost every small to medium sized city with an interstate going through it has a downtown in a much better spot now than just before the highway was built.

A perfect example of this is comparing Raleigh to Charlotte in NC. Charlotte has easy interstate access to downtown, while Raleigh pretty much bypasses it like you mentioned. Both metros are growing rapidly. But Charlotte has had explosive growth in and and just outside "uptown", while practically all of Raleigh's growth has been suburban. There are huge office buildings, apartment buildings, and attractions in Uptown Charlotte because it is easy to get to. On the other hand, why put an office building in downtown Raleigh when you could just put it right off the highway in Cary or North Raleigh, in a place that's easy for everyone to get to? Look up the shopping center / development North Hills in northern Raleigh. It is almost its own skyline of office / apartment/ retail development that was not put downtown, but instead put right off of I-440. If the interstate goes through downtown, all of that development probably goes with it.

On 5/30/2024 at 9:59 AM, tBBP said:

And as for interstates running right through downtowns, and often through areas where people couldn’t afford to fight the construction...great point. That can be attributed to one man: ROBERT MOSES. At the time he was the foremost "expert" on city planning...and quite possibly one of the most racist men to walk the planet. It's a story all too familiar around the country of how interstates razed right through urban poor (read: BIPOC) communities. Just about every major urban center in the country has experienced that. And if you really want to see just how severely that thinking has impacted cities, do a little reading up on I-630 here in Little Rock. The after-effects of "The Line" is still felt to this day. 

 

There was a theory to it beyond "black people bad". The theory was that they could get rid of the most rundown / poorest parts of cities by paving over them and replacing them with new "veins" to pump people in and out of both the revitalized core and the new developments that would inevitably be built further out from the city along the new highways.

You can agree or disagree with that premise, but the thinking was that they could reduce poverty by reducing the amount of impoverished area. It just so happens that a large number of people in these impoverished areas were minorities, but that's another discussion for another day and goes well beyond the scope of where to put highways.

On 3/10/2024 at 12:10 AM, ruttep said:

 

What shows me that the aways were the afterthought is that the numbers weren't changed to blue until after the first season with blue equipment. If the equipment was planned to go with that jersey, wouldn't they have figured out the number color beforehand?

Wouldn't they have had to have had that change on the jersey in the works for over a year though?

Either way, I think the blue stuff looks a lot better with the white uniforms than the reds.

On 3/5/2024 at 8:46 PM, ruttep said:

 

Look at the difference between the home and road uniforms. My main problem with the current Avs uniforms is that the switch to blue equipment was always meant for the home uniforms, with little attention paid to the road uniforms. It just doesn't look right to me, especially with those blue numbers.

I think that the blue equipment looks much better with the aways. It adds some much needed blue to a very burgundy dominated uniform and let's them use both colors in their scheme.

The homes, on the other hand, already have a good amount of blue on the jersey and having the equipment be that color as well makes it compete with the burgundy too much. That and the issue of blurring the border between jersey and pants.

I always assumed that the blue equipment was meant to go with the white jerseys and that the homes were the afterthought.

22 hours ago, pmoehrin said:

 

There is a clear difference between what the two regions do. Raleigh is a traditional, modern American city. Office-centric and with numerous research hubs in the surrounding area, just like Charlotte.

Durham is a clear manufacturing hub that also specializes in pharmaceuticals and healthcare. Duke has a medical school, NC State does not. But even these tend to bring in a lot of blue-collar jobs. You still need people to mop the floors of the hospitals and labs and provide cafeteria food.

 

There is a clear difference there, but the same dynamic exists in many other places where the metro areas aren't split. That's why I'm curious as to why here but not there. They're in the same state, share the same airport, and I don't see a natural geographic border. 540 appears to be the effective border between the two cities.

People just didn't seem to live in Durham and work in Raleigh or vice versa in the numbers that I would consider necessary to be considered part of the same metro. Cary, Apex, Morrisville all have so much intermingling between residents, employers, and things to do and that just doesn't seem to be the case in Durham. I haven't done any research on this though, this is just how it seemed to me when I lived there as a child and a teenager. People seemed to always be travelling between Raleigh and all of those western suburbs but I'd rarely hear of anyone going to or coming from Durham for any reason besides a baseball game or a musical.

On 3/1/2024 at 5:56 PM, pmoehrin said:

 

I agree with most of what the Census Bureau does, but I don't know why Raleigh and Durham would be considered two separate metro areas.

They share an airport, it's less than 30 miles between the two cities, and there's no natural or state border diving the two cities. Chatman County is considered part of the Durham metro area, but it's no further to get to Durham than to get to Raleigh from there.

 

They don't separate Tacoma from Seattle on a metro level, and they're just as far apart from each other.

 

Maybe someone from the area can explain because I don't get it.

I am from the area and I don't consider Durham to be in the Raleigh metro but I can't fully explain why.

Also, I think Raleigh would be a better market for MLB than Charlotte. Charlotte is less risky because of its much larger population and is overall a nicer city. But Raleigh has clearly shown itself to be a far superior sports market. The area has a top 5 in attendance NHL team, a top 5 in attendance MiLB team, and 2-3 college basketball and football teams that get high pro level support. Charlotte's two teams are notoriously two of the least supported teams in their leagues. And I say that as a fan of both.

These would have been absolutely perfect if they had been put in their current color scheme. The navy absolutely kills the look for me, especially with the roads. Takes them from a top 5 look to low teens to early 20s. Crazy how one bad decision can make that much of an impact.

I don't think that publicly financed stadiums are always a bad decision. Just usually.

If a team provides a crucial piece of the city's identity, I think it makes sense to pay to keep them. The StL Cardinals. Any NHL team in Canada. The Lakers. The Chiefs. The Bills.

Teams that are one of the first things that comes to mind when people think of their city.

No one in the last 50 years has thought to themselves "Chicago? Oh, you mean where the White Sox play!"

Ship 'em to Nashville on the next bus out.

On 2/23/2024 at 3:16 PM, Sec19Row53 said:

I'll take it in a different direction -- it shows the pull created by being on WGN all over the country and creating the mystique that is Wrigley Field.

On 2/23/2024 at 3:22 PM, pmoehrin said:

 

The White Sox had a historic ballpark that Jerry couldn't tear down fast enough, and they also had a deal with WGN to carry all the games that Reisndorf couldn't get out of fast enough because he wanted his games to be exclusively on cable.

 

The Cubs thought big; he thought small. That's always been the difference.

This isn't just true of the White Sox though. This is true of all teams in the NHL, NBA, and MLB. Putting games behind paywalls has been nothing short of disastrous for all of them. The NFL and the Cubs are all the proof you need that exposure should be the #1 goal of any mass entertainment entity. These teams are stepping over dollars to pick up pennies with their RSN deals.

On 2/24/2024 at 9:00 AM, BBTV said:

praying to various gods that their diseased children heal quickly before reaching the estimated Canadian life expectancy of 30 (since nobody can afford health care, unlike in the States where everything is affordable and everyone has access to care

The increase in taxes to pay for that health care is the financial equivalent of every single person getting into a life threatening car accident every single year. So yeah, brilliant. Congrats.

Add a thick black outline to the numbers and a orange/white color swap to wear at home and that's what the Flyers should wear full-time forever.

The Rangers stadium series is much better than their new navy alternate.

Speaking of navy, I hate it for the Islanders. Even this same design in royal blue would've been much better. But still not great.

The Devils jersey is fine for this purpose. Works well here but glad we won't see it again.

The dumbest thing about the stadium series jerseys to me is this: They make the numbers huge to be able to be seen from far away - but then make the contrast horrendous. The Devils, Flyers, and Islanders have horrible contrast between jerseys and numbers. Alll of them are much worse in that regard than their primary uniforms. The Hurricanes were the same last year. There are definitely more that I'm missing that have used ghost numbers for a stadium game. Pick a lane.

On 1/18/2024 at 3:53 PM, ruttep said:

 

Think I've made this point before, but those decisions are more the fault of the franchise than the league as a whole. I've always thought the alternates in the playoffs rule was a fun way to make a particular playoff run memorable (the Lady Liberty jerseys gave Gretzky's one playoff run with the Rangers a fun flair) or tease a future rebrand (2006 Ducks, 2007 Canucks, 2014 Ducks, 2016 Penguins). If the Canucks want to wear the black skate alternate (I agree it shouldn't be worn in the playoffs), blame them, not the league rule.

 

Out of the two options you gave, I'd rather go with primaries only in the playoffs. Mixing and matching should never take place on a playoff run. 

But the NHL both allowed the Canucks to make the wrong decision and forced them to stick to that wrong decision. There is no reason to do both of those. Either force them to make the correct decision or allow them to make the wrong decision for only some games rather than all of them.

Obviously the Canucks are the ones who made the wrong decision, but the NHL not only allowed it - they made it worse than it needed to be.

I'd rather see the primaries required for all playoff games too but I'd take mix and match over the current rule. Whatever's going to have alternates worn as little as possible would be ideal.

6 minutes ago, Klondyke said:

I also asked my rep about the Canucks jersey, there is a chance the black skate will be the jersey for the playoffs.

Exactly why the playoff jersey rule now is so stupid. The Canucks may wear a jersey with completely different colors and logos than their primary brand during the most important games. Nothing could possibly be more brand diluting than that.

Either A) let teams mix and match jerseys in the playoffs (like the MLB and NBA) or - ideally - b) make teams wear their primary uniforms for all playoff games (like the NFL). 

There is literally no reason to force teams to dilute their brands by wearing alternates or throwbacks for every playoff game. Let them wear them for just a couple games or ban them for the playoffs entirely.

This has to be one of the most disastrous rebrands because (at least IMO), the rebrand was a huge part of their downfall as a company. They had their own brand with distinctive colors, unique wall decorations, and fun menu names - and threw it all away to be Chipotle 2: Electric Boogaloo. Shortly thereafter, they are closing locations left and right. Turns out if people want Chipotle, they will go to Chipotle.

On 12/23/2023 at 6:05 PM, dont care said:

You realize where you are right?  You can’t just ignore things because they don’t fit your narrative. I also want to remind you that the bone was the primary away jersey when it come out. The segmented horn can most certainly be seen from a distance, you don’t even need the close ups which they do for half the game and then you see every bad idea the design team came up with. you liking the neon highlighter yellow is your opinion but its also an unpopular one.

I never said those things don't matter. I said that many teams in the NFL have uniforms that look awful from any distance and have no redeeming qualities. Compared to those, I will take unfortunate decisions on small details. And I don't know that the yellow is that unpopular.

On 12/20/2023 at 1:48 PM, dont care said:

Well they don’t look good from a distance either, with the highlighter yellow, segmented horn, the dirty laundry white color, and the muddling where ever the white and yellow touch

I don't mind the shade of yellow at all and actually prefer it to the athletic gold they wore in their Jared Goff SB season. I don't like the segmented horn either but it's the definition of something you don't notice from a distance. While worse than the previous horn, it doesn't drag the entire uniform down IMO. The bone is obviously awful but I think nowadays you just have to ignore team's alternates. So many teams have terrible ones and they only wear those like once a year. And I don't understand the muddling you're talking about.

On 12/16/2023 at 1:41 AM, the admiral said:

That doesn't really make sense, but not much about this does. Apparently the plan is to scale down Capital One but book concerts there, except concert tours would likely hit the NBA/NHL arenas in every market and not a 10,000-seater in DC. They'd also burn off some summer dates with Mystics games. Whatever. 

 

The other thing that doesn't make sense is that it's not even a full-on Escape To Suburbia like moving back out to Landover or out to Tysons Corners or the greater Dulles hellscape, which, by the way, arguably the most terrible, America-at-its-worst part of the entire country. No, it's just over the river to Alexandria, which is notoriously old-world and stuffy and probably kind of resistant to a giant suburban Sports Containment Zone being built on what remaining open space they have. And the arena they have now is new-ish, well-maintained, and centrally located in a metropolitan area that all but requires public transit. I'm reminded of Mr. Burns: "I'd trade it all for a little more."

Yeah that's what I'm saying is that if they're going to operate the two arenas anyway, they might as well have a team playing in each. Heck, the Wizards and Capitals could alternate years on each side of the river.

It would make far more sense to not move at all or to get rid of Capital One Arena if they leave it. But I think the one team in each would make more sense than what they're proposing.

On 12/15/2023 at 6:54 PM, ruttep said:

 

This is the key right here. If they don't do that, then there's no way I can put them near the top half of the league. Take away the name tag chest patches while you're at it. As they are right now, those patches and the gradient are the definition of "doing too much."

They are but they are smallish details that you don't see on a typical action shot during a game. I know that's not all that matters but there's many teams who look awful from a distance too.

On 12/15/2023 at 6:51 PM, ruttep said:

 

I love the NHL playoff uniform rule. I think they do a great job of maintaining uniform integrity in the playoffs. If the Canes want to make sacrilegious uniform decisions in the playoffs, that's not the NHL's fault. The NHL can really be the dumbest league in the world in tons of different areas, but uniforms aren't one of them. I blame the Canes themselves for any and all moronic uniform ideas.

I'm just saying IF they are going to allow alternates at all, they shouldn't require teams to wear them for all home games. In an ideal world, they simply don't allow alternates at all and force teams to wear the primaries for all games.

I actually think that after the 2021 switch to the whites as the primary, they have a top half of the league set. It is cohesive, the colors are strong, and the design does enough without doing too much. Adding the extra curl to the horn and getting rid of the gradient on the home numbers would put them in the top 10.

The bones can rightfully be picked apart, but I find it much easier to let alternates slide these days when assessing team's uniforms. So many teams have attrocious alternates now and they can only wear them 3 times anyways.

3 minutes ago, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

 

You play the season to determine a champion. In order to do that, every single game does not need a winner. This is truest of all in the sport with the most games in its season.

 

Even though I no longer have time to follow soccer, as I did for about fifteen years, the one piece of wisdom that I retain from that experience is an understanding of the validity of a draw.  Overtime should be strictly for playoffs in all sports.

I guess we'll just have to disagree to agree. Ties are fine for 10U youth soccer, but when people buy tickets to see who wins, someone should win.

Buying a ticket to a game that ends in a tie is like buying a car with no key. It has all the parts it needs to work, but doesn't deliver on its central promise.

I go completely the opposite direction, I'd rather see a coin flip determine a winner than a tie. 

The NFL doesn't allow alternates at all in the playoffs with rare exception, while the NHL merely mandates that you wear the same home uniform the entire playoffs, regardless if it's an alternate or not.

For the life of me, I do not understand this rule. Teams should wear their primaries as much as possible in the playoffs. Why force teams with bad taste (Hurricanes) to completely shun their primary uniforms? What purpose does that possibly serve?

Of course last year it worked out for the Hurricanes, wearing their should-be-forever-primary reds. Winning a cup in black would be sacreligious. Same for the Rangers-South CANES whites. That's part of why last year's ECF loss stung so bad. Even if they come back and win it this year or next year, there's a 95% chance it wil be in one of those two.

On 11/28/2023 at 6:32 PM, Ferdinand Cesarano said:

I'm not fundamentally against alterations of the rules, even radical ones. But this is bad. If they wanted to take something good from soccer, then they should have borrowed the acknowledgement that a draw is a legitimate result. A regular-season game tied after nine innings should go into the books as a draw; save the extra innings for playoff games that have to have a winner.

I completely disagree. I can't stand ties. You play the game to determine a winner. To not do so is the definition of a failure. I hate that the NFL has ties and think that they should give refunds on tickets to those that attend one.

Why don't they just leave the Wizards at Capital One Arena and move the Capitals to Virginia or vice versa if they're going to have two superfluous arenas anyway?