Michael Martz with the Times-Dispatch on the charrette for the downtown Richmond master plan:
Convert all one-way streets to two-way.
Create a center for public transit, including trolleys.
Make the James River the focus of life in a rejuvenated downtown Richmond where people do more than commute between work and the suburbs.
There were plenty of ideas in the air and scrawled across maps yesterday as more than 175 people took the redesign of the city’s downtown into their own hands. They were encouraged, not blocked, by City Hall.
The article is a good read. (For the record, I’m not endorsing any of the specific ideas — just the idea of holding a charrette.) My only disappointment: I wish the editors had given the story more space. Martz understands the land use issues better than most newspaper reporters. The newspaper needs to turn him loose.
For a more authoritative account of the ideas generated by the charrette, John Sarvay’s reporting on Buttermilk & Molasses is must reading. John groups the ideas into major themes, including: the James River, community connectivity, transportation, green development, mixed use, public art, Jackson Ward and Manchester.