From: Peterson, Nils
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2009 11:55 AM
To: Scarfo, Bob
Subject: Rail connection between Spokane and Moscow
Bob,
I've been following some of your work to get the communities to imagine
a
rail link to Spokane.
I have begun exploring doing a development in Moscow's Legacy Crossing
in a
parcel that might be the terminus or just beyond the terminus of the
line
you are proposing. I have been posting various thoughts, including some
site analysis here
http://greenmoscow.blogspot.com/2009/09/developing-in-legacy-crossing.ht
ml
This is a note to explore if there is a conversation that you and your
students might want to have regarding your project and the site I'm
exploring
---
Scarfo replies
Nils, you're working on some very exciting stuff. I have forwarded your
email to the students working on the Moscow, ID rail station design.
Part of what they are doing is trying to determine a good location for a
potential station.
I told them to contact you and see about meeting and talking with you.
There has been so much interest in the idea of reintroducing passenger
rail that I have been poking around trying to find some funding for a
one-day working session with a broad a group of people as possible. I'd
like to see us walk away for such a meeting with a strong strategy of
how to incrementally move for where we are today to a point in time when
passenger rail is an integral part of the Palouse, eastern WA and
western ID regions.
When I get this meeting established I will definitely let you know so
you can participate.
Thanks so much for reaching out to me.
Bob
Saturday, October 10, 2009
Monday, September 21, 2009
Legacy Crossing Land Cost Analysis
I did some photography looking at the site, and started thinking about the visual impact and potential of building massing, but concluded that I need to work more on the business model first.
One issue to understand is the contribution of the land cost to the project costs. The variables I have thought about considering are:
What I see is that it takes quite intense development to get the land cost down below $10/sqft.
There are a couple commercial properties for sale in Moscow CBD right now with asking prices of about $100/sqft (land + structure). Construction costs run well over $90/sqft so there is something I'm missing or this land is greatly overpriced.
One issue to understand is the contribution of the land cost to the project costs. The variables I have thought about considering are:
- Net usable site (after dedicating land for the Almon St extension ROW
- Net buildable site (after further deducting space inevitably lost to external circulation)
- Gross Built space, after allowing for required parking. Parking could be under the building (at the cost of ground floor space and higher construction costs), but I don't know how to assess this yet.
- Number of floors. The Overlay zone says minimum height 2 stories, and seems to say maximum height of 5 stories (but might be leaving open greater height with setbacks on upper stories)
What I see is that it takes quite intense development to get the land cost down below $10/sqft.
There are a couple commercial properties for sale in Moscow CBD right now with asking prices of about $100/sqft (land + structure). Construction costs run well over $90/sqft so there is something I'm missing or this land is greatly overpriced.
| Site size (sqft) | 184020 |
| Net after ROW (sqft) | 134014 |
| Assumed Useable Footprint | 90% |
| Net Footprint (sqft) | 120613 |
| Lost to public circulation | 13401 |
| Gross Built Footprint (not lost to parking) | 60% |
| Numb Floors | 4 |
| Gross Built Space (SqFt) | 361839 |
| Land Cost | $3,000,000 |
| Land Cost/sqft built | $10.36 |
Sunday, September 20, 2009
Developing in Legacy Crossing
Last spring I posted some thoughts on alternative ways to develop in Moscow's Legacy Crossing area. I continue to mull those ideas over and have taken a few minutes to explore with my banker and Moscow Community Development the south-western parcel. The image (click to enlarge) has two colors of site boundaries, red the recorded property lines and yellow the ideas of Moscow Community Development for street alignments.
The parcel has a long creek frontage (actual creek ROW is owned by University of Idaho. Its access is on the skinny end (NW) along College street. The proposed street would provide access along most of the long north-eastern side. The FEMA flood plain map 1600900002 shows this parcel is above the 100 year flood, were areas just to the North and NW are in the flood plain.
Moscow is in the process of updating its Comprehensive Plan and Chapter 5, Public Utilities, has two maps of interest. The first shows storm water constraints along 6th st, but not in the area of the parcel.
The second shows sanitary sewer constraints
The question arising in the sewer map is what route might the City choose for improving the sanitary sewer capacity? I need to learn the current alignment of the sewers in this area, but given that the site has historically (100 years) been railroad and grain elevators its unlikely that the current alignment lies in this area. However, a future alignment down the proposed street is a possibility.
Moscow Valley Transit provides fixed route service passing the site on 8th and south of the site in Sweet Ave.
"The city earned an Idaho Rural Community Development Block Grant to extend fiber optic connectivity into Alturas Technology Park. The Moscow Fiber Project creates a citywide fiber optic network, using as a nucleus the existing Avista fiber network, which serves many public entities including the city, Moscow School District, Gritman Medical Center, Alturas Technology Park, University of Idaho, Latah County, State of Idaho and potentially many other entities both public and private." http://www.matr.net/article-26796.html This network must pass close to the site as Gritman is to the north and the new fiber was laid along the bike path beginning to the east of Main St on the south side of the creek. The Business Incubator south of the site on Sweet Ave also has high speed network access, probably provided from University of Idaho.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Legacy Crossing Thoughts
Previously I've posted on the Legacy Crossing model that was created by Nels Reece's students and an interesting green architectural firm, Mithun, and how their ideas might apply to Legacy Crossing.
The thing that I keep getting stuck on in Nels' students' work in the buildings as islands that they created. I look at downtown and see continuous urban form. Recently I visited Federal Hill and Otterbien districts in Baltimore and Mission Valley in San Diego and created this slide show with a different vision for the Legacy Crossing area. I'm not proposing either Federalist or Mission styles, but rather the continuous forms, and the interweaving of multiple scales, uses and textures.
With the favorable E-W orientation of the site there is green potential for daylighting, solar PV, or solar hot water. The large roof area suggests looking at Mithun ideas for rain water capture and reuse.
The thing that I keep getting stuck on in Nels' students' work in the buildings as islands that they created. I look at downtown and see continuous urban form. Recently I visited Federal Hill and Otterbien districts in Baltimore and Mission Valley in San Diego and created this slide show with a different vision for the Legacy Crossing area. I'm not proposing either Federalist or Mission styles, but rather the continuous forms, and the interweaving of multiple scales, uses and textures.
With the favorable E-W orientation of the site there is green potential for daylighting, solar PV, or solar hot water. The large roof area suggests looking at Mithun ideas for rain water capture and reuse.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Idaho State-Wide Mobility Plan Visions
The Idaho Department of Transportation is working on a state-wide mobility plan and is gathering visions for the Bike/Pedestrian mobility portion of the plan.
These are due to Mark McNeese at ITD by Jan 31, 2008
Local
I'd start with the vision of BicycleCity.com
I continue by saying, energy security is an important goal which can be assisted by reducing the energy used in transportation systems, and at the same time reducing the alienation produced by large scale auto use (road rage, large parking lots, pedestrian unfriendly spaces, neighborhoods where people don't know their neighbors) .
Moscow is working on revising its Comprehensive Plan and we have been discussing the mobility chapter and moving the language away from "streets" to "thoroughfares" with the intention of recognizing multiple and mixed modalities of transportation. So, just as there is a street hierarchy, street, collector, arterial, I am wanting a hierarchy of non-motorized thoroughfares, and that these be given equal priority in the language and organization or the Comp Plan.
My vision extends to the notion that bike paths are used for multiple purposes. They are linear parks and as well as transportation corridors, and need to be treated in both ways by planners -- recognizing that, just as with car travel, we have multiple goals and values in planning a trip: pleasure, exercise, transportation, etc. Consequently, in addition to planning being multi-modal (park & transportation) signage and public understanding needs to meet multi-modal uses.
In addition to routes, destinations need to be part of the planning. Specifically, parking/storage for bikes is needed, and this should not be second-class "chain-to-a-tree" solutions but offer amenities that are incentives to bike use (such as covered bike parking or secured bike storage (both of which are seen in many european cities))
Destination planning needs to occur at all major employment and commercial destinations and at mode-transfer places, such as bus stops and rail stations.
Snow removal needs to be considered in this planning as well. There are days in Moscow when bike/ped activities would be pleasant enough, but due to poor snow/ice maintenance of the routes is too hazardous.
Regional
Many of the comments above I would apply to my regional vision. Inter-city trails need to be seen as multi-modal (ped/bike) and multi-purpose (recreation/transportation)
State
If the visions above are well implemented, the state-wide vision is probably to have uniform and rich information available online about each regions bike/ped systems and how the regions articulate.
These are due to Mark McNeese at ITD by Jan 31, 2008
Local
I'd start with the vision of BicycleCity.com
"Bicycle City is a planned car-free communities project. Our vision is a future with sustainable cities and communities that are eco-, people- and animal-friendly.
We are interested in promoting bicycle- and walkable-friendly cities anywhere in the world and see the importance of the energy, land and ecosystem saving city at this crucial and auspicious time in history."
I continue by saying, energy security is an important goal which can be assisted by reducing the energy used in transportation systems, and at the same time reducing the alienation produced by large scale auto use (road rage, large parking lots, pedestrian unfriendly spaces, neighborhoods where people don't know their neighbors) .
Moscow is working on revising its Comprehensive Plan and we have been discussing the mobility chapter and moving the language away from "streets" to "thoroughfares" with the intention of recognizing multiple and mixed modalities of transportation. So, just as there is a street hierarchy, street, collector, arterial, I am wanting a hierarchy of non-motorized thoroughfares, and that these be given equal priority in the language and organization or the Comp Plan.
My vision extends to the notion that bike paths are used for multiple purposes. They are linear parks and as well as transportation corridors, and need to be treated in both ways by planners -- recognizing that, just as with car travel, we have multiple goals and values in planning a trip: pleasure, exercise, transportation, etc. Consequently, in addition to planning being multi-modal (park & transportation) signage and public understanding needs to meet multi-modal uses.
In addition to routes, destinations need to be part of the planning. Specifically, parking/storage for bikes is needed, and this should not be second-class "chain-to-a-tree" solutions but offer amenities that are incentives to bike use (such as covered bike parking or secured bike storage (both of which are seen in many european cities))
Destination planning needs to occur at all major employment and commercial destinations and at mode-transfer places, such as bus stops and rail stations.
Snow removal needs to be considered in this planning as well. There are days in Moscow when bike/ped activities would be pleasant enough, but due to poor snow/ice maintenance of the routes is too hazardous.
Regional
Many of the comments above I would apply to my regional vision. Inter-city trails need to be seen as multi-modal (ped/bike) and multi-purpose (recreation/transportation)
State
If the visions above are well implemented, the state-wide vision is probably to have uniform and rich information available online about each regions bike/ped systems and how the regions articulate.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
America Loses to Japan - again
Contrast these two stories Ford gets taxpayer money to make muscle car (boo)
DEARBORN, Mich. — Ford Motor Co. is looking to appeal to muscle car enthusiasts with its 2010 Ford Shelby GT500. The latest model of the Shelby pays closer attention to quality and interior detail, Ford said during a preview of the car set to debut at the North American International Auto Show in Detroit, which runs Jan. 11-25. The Shelby Mustang is in its fourth model since being reintroduced in 2007. The car was first produced by Ford in collaboration with former race-car driver turned designer, Carroll Shelby, who first refashioned the Mustang in the 1960s. Although the Shelby is a high-end specialty car, Ford hopes that the pumped up design _ racing stripes that adorn the seats _ and performance help show off the company's commitment to high performance and quality.and Toyota uses its own funds in a down economy to innovate (yeah). Now, explain to me why we bailed out the US auto industry.
TOKYO — Toyota Motor Corp. is secretly developing a vehicle that will be powered solely by solar energy in an effort to turn around its struggling business with a futuristic ecological car, a top business daily reported Thursday. The Nikkei newspaper, however, said it will be years before the planned vehicle will be available on the market. Toyota's offices were closed Thursday and officials were not immediately available for comment. According to The Nikkei, Toyota is working on an electric vehicle that will get some of its power from solar cells equipped on the vehicle, and that can be recharged with electricity generated from solar panels on the roofs of homes. The automaker later hopes to develop a model totally powered by solar cells on the vehicle, the newspaper said without citing sources. The solar car is part of efforts by Japan's top automaker to grow during hard times, The Nikkei said.
Thursday, January 1, 2009
Reducing my carbon footprint
By way of developing a New Year's resolution, I have been thinking about how I might reduce my carbon footprint by 25%. That's an arbitrary figure, below what is being said the world needs to accomplish in the near future, and high enough to be challenging and thought provoking. Broadly, there are a couple strategies: invest in conservation or change lifestyle.
Option #1, Invest. Buy a Prius and continue driving. The invest option either needs to produce a big impact in one area of my carbon footprint, or I need to invest in multiple areas of my life with modest gains in each. Since my family does considerable driving in town, we might do better to add Zap electric car at lower cost than a Prius.
Option #2, Lifestyle. Use 25% less of everything. Drive less, heat less, eat less. Or, substitute smaller footprint options (eat local food with less embodied carbon from transportation). Doing with less is cheaper and faster than investing, but may be harder to implement (or harder to keep implementing). Substituting might be more expensive (in time or money) but easier to choose. The problem is, finding enough substitutions to make the desired level of savings. Some substitutions (using a clothes line rather than a clothes dryer, walking vs driving) are going to take considerable change in how I organize my life and have impacts on (require consent of) how my family organizes its life.
Last summer's high gas prices and current talk of carbon taxes could make some of these choices clearer, and they also point out that the two types of strategies may be chosen differently by people of different economic means.
I looked at the payback on an electric car. If it replaced 5000 miles driven by a gas car getting 25 mpg and gas is $1.60, that is $320/year, not much of a payment on a loan. At $4/gallon its $800/year.
Resolutions
(Small) Investment. If big investment is out, because the payback is long and/or going into more debt seems imprudent right now, there is another option -- small investment. Small investment can feel to the psyche and wallet more like an operating expense (and payback time may be less important). An example in this category could be replacing incandescent light bulbs with CFLs even though the old bulbs are still good (Better yet would be to start into LED lights that promise to have lower power consumption per lumen.) Another example is to get a home energy audit and spend some time with a caulk gun.
Cut Back. I'm looking into putting a timer on my hot water tank. If it could be off 6 hrs/day, that should save something. Shorter showers, low flow shower heads are some other moves, but they require life style consent from others in the family. Changing lifestyle is probably better done slowly or it will likely feel like deprivation.
So, while I don't see making the 25% reduction this year, I'm making a New Years resolution to start some small investments and explore learning some new lifestyle habits.
Option #1, Invest. Buy a Prius and continue driving. The invest option either needs to produce a big impact in one area of my carbon footprint, or I need to invest in multiple areas of my life with modest gains in each. Since my family does considerable driving in town, we might do better to add Zap electric car at lower cost than a Prius.
Option #2, Lifestyle. Use 25% less of everything. Drive less, heat less, eat less. Or, substitute smaller footprint options (eat local food with less embodied carbon from transportation). Doing with less is cheaper and faster than investing, but may be harder to implement (or harder to keep implementing). Substituting might be more expensive (in time or money) but easier to choose. The problem is, finding enough substitutions to make the desired level of savings. Some substitutions (using a clothes line rather than a clothes dryer, walking vs driving) are going to take considerable change in how I organize my life and have impacts on (require consent of) how my family organizes its life.
Last summer's high gas prices and current talk of carbon taxes could make some of these choices clearer, and they also point out that the two types of strategies may be chosen differently by people of different economic means.
I looked at the payback on an electric car. If it replaced 5000 miles driven by a gas car getting 25 mpg and gas is $1.60, that is $320/year, not much of a payment on a loan. At $4/gallon its $800/year.
Resolutions
(Small) Investment. If big investment is out, because the payback is long and/or going into more debt seems imprudent right now, there is another option -- small investment. Small investment can feel to the psyche and wallet more like an operating expense (and payback time may be less important). An example in this category could be replacing incandescent light bulbs with CFLs even though the old bulbs are still good (Better yet would be to start into LED lights that promise to have lower power consumption per lumen.) Another example is to get a home energy audit and spend some time with a caulk gun.
Cut Back. I'm looking into putting a timer on my hot water tank. If it could be off 6 hrs/day, that should save something. Shorter showers, low flow shower heads are some other moves, but they require life style consent from others in the family. Changing lifestyle is probably better done slowly or it will likely feel like deprivation.
So, while I don't see making the 25% reduction this year, I'm making a New Years resolution to start some small investments and explore learning some new lifestyle habits.
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