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Planning: general 🌇 Random Planning Thoughts (and Photos) Deserving No Thread Of Their Own

DVD said:
I give you the 4 way stop roundabout.
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There are few of these in the area. The engineer calls them traffic circles instead of roundabouts, don't think that's really the right thing either. In most cases, the small circle was placed in the middle of the 4 way stop intersection after the fact. It was usually put in to calm traffic on long straightaways or because people kept blowing through stop signs. In most cases around here they are in places where there's not enough right-of-way to put in a true roundabout.

Everyone hates them. Buses, trash trucks and fire trucks usually cannot actually maneuver through the circle and have to go through against traffic to make left turns. I still don't understand why they put stop signs instead of yield but they do. We don't really have true traffic engineers around here.
 
I'm 100% agnostic about whether the electeds approve or deny this development proposal.

I'll just be all like...Next.
 
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UrbanUnPlanner said:
Only thing I can think of is that the roundabout people somehow never talked to the sign people -- MUTCD 2B.09 paragraph 02 requires YIELD control in this application:
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Ugh. Well Fort Worth doesn't meet that code. We have a large circle that's on my commute. Traffic already on the the circle is required to yield to entering traffic, but only on one spot on the circle. I usually enter from where the dark pickup is coming from, and cars where the black SUV is at the yield sign often run through those signs like they have the right of way (and really, they should). You gotta be careful.

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The yield signs are put up that way to keep traffic from backing up behind where the dark pickup is; there is a major intersection with traffic lights a quarter mile back and if traffic entering the circle from there didn't have priority it would back up and cause gridlock, so I understand why that do that but if you're unfamiliar with the area it just makes no sense.

What I've seen done in Europe in a similar situation is to put a traffic light on the circle and on the entrance, and time the light with the other intersection a quarter mile off so that when the majority of cars are coming on there you can actively stop the cars on the circle with a hard red light, but then give them a hard green and give the entering traffic the hard red. During non-peak times, turn the lights off and have conventional yields at the entrance to the circle. Maybe have them be variable message signs that say YIELD or NO TURN ON RED depending on time of day.

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I give you the statue of mansplaining. Let me explain this statue...

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Anybody dealt with a bitcoin mining center wanting locate in town?

I'm looking at it as a data center, but dunno...
 
Planit said:
Anybody dealt with a bitcoin mining center wanting locate in town?

I'm looking at it as a data center, but dunno...
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The actual City of Fort Worth is bit mining.

Fort Worth, Texas, is now the first city government in the United States to mine bitcoin — and in an almost poetic devotion to the initiative, Mayor Mattie Parker oversaw the construction of a small mining farm in City Hall.

Three Bitmain Antminer S9 mining rigs will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in the climate-controlled information technology wing of Fort Worth City Hall. The city says the miners will be hosted on a private network to minimize the security risk.
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www.cnbc.com

Fort Worth is the first city in the U.S. to mine bitcoin, and will run mining rigs out of city hall

Three Bitmain Antminer S9 mining rigs will run 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in the climate-controlled information technology wing of Fort Worth City Hall.
www.cnbc.com www.cnbc.com
 
Thread split ?

Tempe City Hall selected as ugliest building in Arizona
ktar.com

Tempe City Hall selected as ugliest building in Arizona

Blueprints for a new building can look really appealing on paper, but sometimes the end result doesn't meet the public's original expectations.
ktar.com ktar.com

tempecityhall-620x370.jpg


Santa Rosa, CA
…AND HOW WE GAINED AN UGLY CITY HALL
santarosahistory.com

…AND HOW WE GAINED AN UGLY CITY HALL

"This is why we can't have nice things" was a popular quip a few years ago; it's something to say after discovering something cherished has been trashed. Every time I step into the courtyard of Santa Rosa's city hall complex that's the phrase I mumble (okay, whimper) because underneath this...
santarosahistory.com
 
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Big Owl said:
I never knew what Pier One's headquarters looked liked but I would have imagined it with wicker and/or rattan accents with the Pier One smell.
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Yeah, Fort Worth gained two large corporate campuses in 2004-5. Pier One Place opened in 2004 and they were out of business by 2020 (and is now Fort Worth City Hall). RadioShack opened their new campus in 2005 and they were kaput in 2015 (and is now Tarrant County College River Campus). Whenever an existing corporation builds a new, expanded corporate HQ I get nervous.
 
Whose Yur Planner said:
Brutalism for the win
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That's not Brutalism. Boston and Fort Worth are for sure.

It's Post War Modern...with a hint of Iron Curtain Soviet Bloc.

I like Green Bay's building. The simplicity and straightforward adornment is elegant. I'm sure the building is infinitely easier to rehab/reskin than the Tempe/Fort Worth/Boston monstrosities.
 
mendelman said:
That's not Brutalism. Boston and Fort Worth are for sure.

It's Post War Modern...with a hint of Iron Curtain Soviet Bloc.

I like Green Bay's building. The simplicity and straightforward adornment is elegant. I'm sure the building is infinitely easier to rehab/reskin than the Tempe/Fort Worth/Boston monstrosities.
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You are correct! Inside, it wasn't too bad! Terrazzo floors, marble, bright and functional. Just not much to look at from the outside.
 
Should city hall be something great to look at? On the one hand it does represent your city. On the other hand it is tax payer dollars at work.

I give you the Salina Kansas city hall
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Oddly, the City of Fort Worth got a helluva deal when buying the former Pier One HQ because they basically bought the asset out of bankruptcy during the pandemic when demand for office space was dreadful. So it really was a wise spending of public money.

The one shortcoming is that the Pier One building doesn't actually have an auditorium or other space large enough to use for council chambers and are going to have to construct a new building adjacent to the new City Hall for that purpose. But building that plus the cost of acquiring the Pier One building will still be a savings over other options they were considering (i.e. building an entirely new bldg).
 
mendelman said:
One can wisely spend public money and have 'nice' design.

Girl Why Dont We Have Both GIF
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We both know it's possible, we also know that as soon as you tell the architect you want a "nice" design the price triples. I mean all those decorative things they throw on the box cost money.
 
I love telling developers for chains/franchises that I don't want to see the elevations for your D building, make it a B at least but I know you can do the A elevations if you want.
 
Big Owl said:
I go inspection at a vacant industrial building. The architect is the last to arrive. He walks up to the group and says "let us pray before we get started." He proceeds to pray that the outcome of the inspection favors him and his client. Spoiler alert.... it didn't.
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Wow, I'm gobsmacked by that.
season 6 dancing GIF by CBBC
 
So my state hates impact fee laws since 2011. Granted I think some cities in the area pushed their limits which triggered these laws. So here are things not allowed to be built under parks impact fee collection:

that portion of any facility that is used for amusement parks, aquariums, aquatic centers, auditoriums, arenas, arts and cultural facilities, bandstand and orchestra facilities, bathhouses, boathouses, clubhouses, community centers greater than three thousand square feet in floor area, environmental education centers, equestrian facilities, golf course facilities, greenhouses, lakes, museums, theme parks, water reclamation or riparian areas, wetlands, zoo facilities or similar recreational facilities, but may include swimming pools

I personally like that we can't build bathhouses. That was always such a popular amenity. The one that kills me is the 3000 sqft limit on community centers. Wouldn't want the whole community to get together.

Just for context, one city built a giant arts center on impact fees. A lot of cities were building mini water parks "aquatic centers" and a couple cities used park fees to preserve large parts of desert land. To the point one city has the largest park at over 30,000 acres. Park is a loose term. It's a preserve with trails for when you want to enjoy our dry heat.
 
I give you the Arizona capitol. For ugly buildings take a google drive up and down the block and don't forget to look on Jefferson St a block south. These are all state buildings built over the years. When you're done google the Frank Lloyd Wright Arizona capitol concept and see what we could have had.

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This is Buncombe County Admin Bldg (on left) & Asheville City Hall (on right).

Originally designed to compliment each other, but the county boys decided they wanted something bigger & built something different. Over time I think they work well together, but that wasn't the case in the 20s.

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It's all multi-family in my burg. Is that a vacant office, I bet we can turn that into trendy apartments!
 
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