{"id":5224,"date":"2013-01-17T08:06:07","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T13:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/?p=5224"},"modified":"2013-01-17T08:06:07","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T13:06:07","slug":"toilet-paper-and-rochesters-center-city-master-plan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochestersubway.com\/topics\/2013\/01\/toilet-paper-and-rochesters-center-city-master-plan\/","title":{"rendered":"Toilet Paper and Rochester’s Center City Master Plan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Rochester<\/a>
\nLast night the City of Rochester held the first of two informational\/public input sessions for the new Center City Master Plan \"external<\/a>. This meeting was primarily intended for residents of downtown, although many people who work or live outside the inner loop also gave input.<\/p>\n

I listened for about an hour as many great ideas were put on the table… “Plant trees down the middle of Main Street to make it nicer for pedestrians.” “Make people feel safer about walking downtown.” “Stop demolishing older and historic buildings.”<\/p>\n

Then one resident announced, “Sometimes I go to the bathroom and I need toilet paper, but the only place to find toilet paper is Wegmans or Tops which are too far to walk to.” So, simply put, downtown could use more retailers and small grocers \u2013 for life’s little necessities (i.e. T.P.). Brilliant!<\/p>\n

\"Why<\/a>
\nNow can somebody please explain something to me… On the meeting handout entitled “Center City Objectives,” why is MOBILITY way down the list at #7 \u2013\u00a0right behind enhancing and expanding public spaces? Before I can enjoy all those beautiful public spaces, don’t I need to GET THERE first? Oh, sure, I could drive there. Duh. <\/p>\n

Here’s the deal; downtown Rochester has an identity crisis. We want it to be a “real city,” with shop-lined streets and people-jammed sidewalks. We ask it to be urban. But at the same time we also ask it to be drivable, and SUB-urban. Let’s look at the facts:<\/p>\n

\"Big<\/a>
\nTo entice businesses to locate jobs downtown we allow historic buildings \"external<\/a> to become parking lots.<\/p>\n

To make people “feel safe” we spend millions to move all the RTS buses (and “those transit people”) off Main Street.<\/p>\n

To give people access to the little stuff, like toilet paper, we practically beg Wegman’s to build one of the largest single big-box stores any city anywhere has ever seen.<\/p>\n

And after all this, downtown residents still cannot get to the toilet paper?!<\/p>\n

\"More<\/a>
\nRochester has tried to make peace with the automobile. Yet businesses are still moving employees out of downtown \"external<\/a> because, they say, parking is difficult to find. And people still feel unsafe walking more than a few blocks downtown because vast expanses of parking lots (and garages) create dead zones<\/a> where even the homeless don’t dare roam. And even if we could convince a developer to put a shovel in the ground, sixty-percent of our downtown surface area is undevelopable because it might mean parking spaces<\/a> would be lost.<\/p>\n

Before any master plan can begin to help Rochester, Rochester needs to decide what it wants to be. We can be urban. Or we can be sub-urban. We cannot be both at the same time. And we cannot weave a walker’s paradise through a maze of parking lots.<\/p>\n

Okay, good. So we’ve decided to be urban. Next, we must deal with MOBILITY. Surprisingly, much of the thinking has already been laid out for us in dozens of previous studies, plans and reports…<\/p>\n