Assembly Square Infill and Small Developments | Somerville

CSTH said:
You know what? This is a pretty good project.
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yea, it's progressing well, but it blows my mind that years later the main pedestrian/bike access from east Somerville is through a filthy highway underpass while gambling with traffic on off and on ramps.
It looks like we're going to have to wait for a serious accident before anything substantial is done.
The city put up some new traffic calming lights that never seem to be on.
It's pretty sad that they have no interest in tying this in to the surrounding community.
 
Ruairi said:
yea, it's progressing well, but it blows my mind that years later the main pedestrian/bike access from east Somerville is through a filthy highway underpass while gambling with traffic on off and on ramps.
It looks like we're going to have to wait for a serious accident before anything substantial is done.
The city put up some new traffic calming lights that never seem to be on.
It's pretty sad that they have no interest in tying this in to the surrounding community.
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MassDOT did that work on the new signals. I don't believe they are operational yet, but if they are, HAWK beacons are dark until the button is pressed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAWK_beacon
 
sm89 said:
MassDOT did that work on the new signals. I don't believe they are operational yet, but if they are, HAWK beacons are dark until the button is pressed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HAWK_beacon
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Fascinating and appropriate that the example in the article is from street crossings at Texas A&M University.

A&M is a case study in the challenges of integrating a pedestrian/bike oriented zone (e.g., the campus) into the midst of massive 60-mph 6-lane streets. It is an absolute disaster for students to cross these Texas-typical mega roads to get from their housing to the academic campus. (BTW, these aren't even highways...just the way they do 'normal' streets out there)

Goes to show that pedestrian neighborhoods do not integrate easily with high-volume vehicular-centric areas. (I realize this is a no-shit comment...but until you see it, it is hard to even describe how much of a caricature of this phenomenon it is out there. In 2 weeks spent out there for work, I witnessed 2 high speed rear-endings of cars trying to stop for crossing students)
 
BeeLine said:
https://flic.kr/p/CC5ET6
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This is interesting. Since so much new construction is anywhere-generic it's up to artwork/graphics/signage to provide some kind of place maker identity. This, the Caffe Nero shed and the other new shed next to it seem to acknowledge Assembly's factory industrial past. Not bad at all.
 
Definitely true that this isn't really connected to the surrounding community at all. It doesn't help having the highway right next to the area though. Theres not really many options to really integrate them you can only make it so much better, but there is potential there. Its never going to be seamless though, but thats just the way it is. Its still a very nice area in a spot where there was nothing before so for what it is I think it came out great. I see no reason that they couldn't add a couple pedestrian bridges as well.
 
This project is really impressive. I really like how the 4-5 story buildings all have different facades. The place looks fairly organic in evolution, rather than all built at once.

Also, that is one cool Caffe Nero.
 
bigpicture7 said:
Fascinating and appropriate that the example in the article is from street crossings at Texas A&M University.

A&M is a case study in the challenges of integrating a pedestrian/bike oriented zone (e.g., the campus) into the midst of massive 60-mph 6-lane streets. It is an absolute disaster for students to cross these Texas-typical mega roads to get from their housing to the academic campus. (BTW, these aren't even highways...just the way they do 'normal' streets out there)
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The "benefit" of the HAWK is that cars can go (after stop) when the crosswalk is counting down if there is no one in the crosswalk. There would be an insanely long flashing don't walk interval with a standard signal at such a long crossing. I'd imagine it would have an "unreasonable delay" for drivers and that's why they went with the HAWK. (When it comes to safety, that is a dumb response)
 
The greatest part of this whole thing in my personal opinion, besides the varying facades that do a great job of differentiation and just looking good overall, is the way the garages are placed. Ive always wondered why places like Dubai or other cities with above ground garages don't do this. Here for the most part they place the garages in the middle and build low rise buildings around them on all sides. Thats the best way to hide them while still being able to have huge above ground garages. I never understood why Dubai just plops 10 story garages right on the side of the road. You can build towers on all four sides of a garage and low rises between them with a few entrances/exits and its completely hidden. Then on the roof you can have a huge common area. THAT is the way it should be done. You could do this literally anywhere where you need above ground parking and a lot of it but still want them hidden. Government center is another example where they are doing this as well. Theres no need for a garage to face a street...ever. Build the garage back from the street and put up condos against the street with ground level retail. You could replicate this in every city, everywhere, have tons and tons of parking, and great street level retail. Garages don't need to ruin the street level at all, just set them back from the street a bit, doesn't seem like too hard of a concept to understand but for some reason it seems like this is just being figured out.

These master planned cities popping up overseas need to get on this concept asap. To me Dubai seems like a mess besides that one road that circles around the Burj Dubai. If you were going to build a new city from scratch like Saudi Arabia is doing for example you can use superblocks or whatever size the parcel is between streets, build an entire garage the size of the block but set back from the street, and then as many towers or condos you want you just build along the street. Then in a few different places put a couple entrances and exits and your done. TONS of parking at literally every block, great street level, everyone wins. You wouldn't need a huge garage at every parcel because cities should be focused on all modes of transit but just as a proof of concept. However many you need use this model and everyone wins.

This means cars can park at literally whatever building they need to get to and not drive around for a few minutes clogging traffic, then you still build your rail transit for people who use that mode, bike lanes, etc and you have a well functioning city. They pretty much did this here for the most part so it would in a way be an assembly row but scaled up to an entire city with subways etc. To elaborate even further your could have open spaces running through the garages with an above ground "subway" that is still enclosed through the garages, with walls on both sides of the tracks, with bridges going over the streets to the next hole in the garage across the street. Now you have a subway with stations that can be climate controlled and doesn't need to have holes bored underground but also doesn't need to run down the middle of streets like an elevated rail. Its still hidden from view but above ground. On parcels without garages yet you just put the pieces up for the railway, and on parcels without garages it just goes behind the buildings like an el enclosed or not. I don't know how this wasn't figured out before.... Meanwhile we have cities like Dubai where there are parking garages at every tower but they're against the street and its looks like a huge mess. Somebody needs to take this concept and apply this to a masterplanned city. When you start from scratch these cities should be almost perfection...I mean you literally have a blank slate. They had a blank slate here and took full advantage of it. Take the best ideas from every city and apply them to yours. With regards to Dubai again the streets are also a mess, you can take the grid plan and combine it with this idea and make some encircling streets or whatever you want to do, take ides from different squares and courtyards around the world...etc and build something amazing. Anyways this is turning out great here and some of the concepts from Assembly should definitely be applied around the world.
 
Most of the garages are also structurally independent from the buildings surrounding them and are usually only surrounded on three sides so eventually they can be replaced and it should be relatively easy because they are independent of the surrounding buildings.
 
sm89 said:
The "benefit" of the HAWK is that cars can go (after stop) when the crosswalk is counting down if there is no one in the crosswalk. There would be an insanely long flashing don't walk interval with a standard signal at such a long crossing. I'd imagine it would have an "unreasonable delay" for drivers and that's why they went with the HAWK. (When it comes to safety, that is a dumb response)
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Except that exact same thing can be done with a regular signal.

HAWKS are extra stupid.
 
jass said:
Except that exact same thing can be done with a regular signal.

HAWKS are extra stupid.
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No. With a regular signal you cannot drive through during the flashing don't walk phase. I don't like HAWKs, but they do speed up the whole process.
 
sm89 said:
No. With a regular signal you cannot drive through during the flashing don't walk phase. I don't like HAWKs, but they do speed up the whole process.
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You absolutely can. As long as they simply push that button in the programming cabinet to allow it.

Green means go.
Yellow means prepare to stop.
Red means stop and stay stopped.
Flashing red means stop and then proceed if clear.

There are hundreds of these in Los Angeles.

https://goo.gl/maps/XzY9c3rJdWC2

Creating a new signal was idiotic.
 
jass said:
You absolutely can. As long as they simply push that button in the programming cabinet to allow it.

Green means go.
Yellow means prepare to stop.
Red means stop and stay stopped.
Flashing red means stop and then proceed if clear.

There are hundreds of these in Los Angeles.

https://goo.gl/maps/XzY9c3rJdWC2

Creating a new signal was idiotic.
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That appears to be a standard pedestrian signal. Maybe you haven't seen the HAWK in action? If it were so easy to make other signals have the same function (which I believe is not allowed in the manual), the HAWK wouldn't exist.
 
The important thing about a hawk is that it turns into a "go when clear" when the pedestrian clears, right?

This is not the case with, for example, a flashing red, which remains a "stop and then go when clear" even after the pedestrian is out of the intersection.

A HAWK, ideally, is equally protective for the pedestrian as a red/stop/flashing red, but way less vexing to the driver (and therefore, we hope, easier to roll out with less opposition from people in cars)
 
HAWKs help maintain a close-to-normal LOS while still providing safety for pedestrians by stopping traffic briefly. And when thinking about LOS, it's not just about cars - maintaining LOS also helps buses.
 
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