As cars and trucks droned by outside, citizens streamed into a former auto parts store at the corner of DeRenne Avenue and Montgomery Street. The purpose of the gathering tonight was the launch of a week-long design charrette focused on the DeRenne Avenue corridor, arguably one of the most important yet troubled streets in the city. Factor in its use by commuters from outlying areas and its importance and troubles become regional in scope and severity.

Facilitators from Kimley-Horn and Associates described the work they had done in Phase One of the project and outlined the goals for Phase Two and, in particular, the schedule for the charrette. Before the presentations and during breaks, participants browsed maps and visual representations of the streets, buildings and other components of the DeRenne Avenue corridor.

In his remarks, KHA’s Stephen Stansbery repeated a mantra that came from the project advisory committee: “Doing nothing,” about the current state of DeRenne Avenue, “is just not acceptable.” Further, he suggested the widening of DeRenne, which has been floated as a cure for traffic congestion, is not the easy solution some imagine it to be. “Adding lanes,” he said. “is rarely the solution in an urban context.” Still, the audience was cautioned, moving automobile traffic must be a central part of the final product.

But what is to be done about DeRenne? Stansbery issued a challenge of sorts, referencing Savannah’s world famous streets, which attract millions of visitors from around the globe. “Why can’t we build a street today that’s great today and will be great 100 years from now?” He said doing so would take courage and vision.

As part of that vision, charrette attendees were given small sheets of paper and asked to complete two phrases:

Right now I think DeRenne Avenue is …

and

In the future, I visualize DeRenne Avenue as…

How would you answer each question? Respond in the comments section.

For more information and a complete schedule of the week’s events, visit the Project DeRenne Web site.

When a street is designed to maximize the speed of motor vehicles, the results are as predictable as they are ugly. Yet we may not comprehend how desolate the built environment becomes when it is given over exclusively to cars. Cars and trucks become a distraction, drawing our attention away from the ways that they degrade the spaces, public and private, at the edge of the roadway. But when we strip away the cars, we can see how much damage they have done.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

The photos above were taken on a rainy Sunday morning in January 2008. I took my camera to Savannah’s DeRenne Avenue to see what it looked like, without the cars. In the public imagination, DeRenne is perpetually clogged with traffic. But, as these photos show, there are times when the street’s six (and sometimes seven) lanes are entirely vacant.

It’s difficult to imagine a streetscape more forlorn. The awfulness of DeRenne Avenue is amplified by the fact that it is a “gateway” to the city and its proximity to residential neighborhoods. In it’s current state, it’s understandable that motorists would want to speed through it as quickly as possible. Of course, the quest to shorten commutes to the western suburbs is the very thing that produced the current sorry state of affairs.

But we, as a community, can and should do better. We could have a street that is safe for all users — including pedestrians, cyclists, transit riders and motorists — instead of one that endangers them. We could have an attractive boulevard lined with prosperous businesses, instead of a street that’s blighted by vacant and poorly maintained commercial structures. We could have a civic amenity of which we can be proud, instead of a dreary urban limbo that people try to escape as soon as possible. We could have a DeRenne that unites Savannah instead of one that divides it in two.

A vision of what DeRenne could be will be on display at a week-long design charrette from Nov. 2-6 at a former NAPA auto parts store at 131 W. DeRenne Ave. More information is available on the Project DeRenne Web site.

Regular viewers of Georgia Public Television’s “Georgia Outdoors” program have likely noticed a graphic that appears near the end of each episode. It urges viewers to turn in poachers. The Georgia Department of Natural Resources describes a poacher as, “a thief who steals wildlife that belongs to you and all other Georgians.”

Now let’s take these poachers and transplant them from our state’s waterways and forests into our city. Instead of stealing wildlife, the urban poacher takes public space “that belongs to you and all other Savannahians.” While these poachers are not technically “stealing” sidewalks and bike lanes by using them to store their cars and trucks, while doing so they exclude the intended users of these spaces. This happens all over the city of Savannah every day, rarely attracting attention from law enforcement or other government officials.

In the photo above, the Isuzu Rodeo’s (or is it a Honda Passport?) rear end blocks the sidewalk adjacent to a busy street. Its owner could not pull it any farther into the driveway because that space is occupied by another car that’s sleeping in an “auto cocoon,” much like the one Lane Meyer’s dad complained about in a popular teen comedy from the 1980s. Thus, making room for an apparently immobile automobile comes at the expense of pedestrian mobility. The owner of the Chevrolet truck has, for whatever reason, concluded that the sidewalk is a better place than the street to park. His choice forces pedestrians to walk in the street.

When I set out to capture images of sidewalks being used for parking, I knew exactly where to go. That’s because “sidewalk poachers” are terrifically dependable. Once they start using part or all of a sidewalk to store part or all of a car, it becomes routine. I suppose pedestrians who regularly encounter these vehicles simply get used to walking around them. Or perhaps they start taking a different route. They shouldn’t be forced to do either.

Another fascinating phenomenon about the poaching of public space is how quickly contagious it becomes. The photo above depicts a car parked — against traffic — in the Habersham Street bike lane yesterday morning. It was among many left in the city’s only north/south pavement marked bike route, while its owner shopped at a garage sale. Once one person decided to park in the bike lane, a dozen more followed suit. Eventually a Savannah Chatham Metropolitan Police Department officer stopped to clear the lane. Yet shoppers continued to arrive and park in the bike lane, seemingly unfazed by her presence and her cruiser’s flashing lights.

The phrase “complete streets” is being uttered with increasing frequency within the Metropolitan Planning Commission’s Mendonsa hearing room. That’s very good news. As we move toward this worthy goal of making our thoroughfares safe and accommodating for all users, why not also focus on reclaiming the sidewalks and bike lanes we already have?

I ride my bike past Scott TV repair just about every workday. Sometimes there are television carcasses sitting out front on the sidewalk. Sometimes I can see people moving around inside. Sometimes it’s open. More often it’s not.

A bigger mystery than Scott TV’s business hours is this: Who takes a television in for repair anymore? And perhaps an even more important question: Can a modern television set even be repaired by a local shop?

When ride past Scott TV, I usually think of Mr. Jalopy, who I wrote about last year on my other blog. A leader in the “Makers Movement,” and creator of the “Maker’s Bill of Rights,” Mr. Jalopy has become the standard-bearer for a new generation of workshop tinkerers and inventors. There’s one passage in the Maker’s Bill of Rights that speaks to everyone, even those of us who can’t read a schematic or turn a wrench or use a soldering iron without making a subsequent trip the to the ER. This is it:

“Ease of repair shall be a design ideal, not an afterthought.”

That means even if I’m not capable of repairing something I buy — if Mr. Jalopy’s standard is followed by product designers — there’s a chance someone in my neighborhood probably could. And this presents business opportunities for local folks, who have the skill and equipment to repair consumer products. I think it’s much better than the alternative, which is fretting about how to recycle unrepairable (at least locally) consumer products.

What if these items were designed and manufactured to be serviceable and even upgradable, instead of disposable? What if a slight malfunction meant a trip to a local repair shop instead of a trip to the landfill? Clearly there are many high technology items that cannot be serviced outside of very exacting environments. But there are many others that could be, if they were designed with serviceability in mind.

Knowing that a product could remain functional and useful with locally sourced repair and maintenance would allow consumers to follow another of Mr. Jalopy’s maxims: “Buy your first to be your last.”

Among those who want to make Savannah a more sustainable community, this past week may be remembered as a particularly important one. It marked a growing awareness of the economic, environmental, social, public safety and public health benefits to be derived from encouraging Savannah’s residents and visitors to move around the city on foot or by bicycle. Throughout the week there was evidence that local support for livable streets is gaining momentum, as residents and government officials came together to learn about how to make Savannah’s streets more livable.

Monday: A walking tour of downtown Savannah was led by staff from the City of Savannah and Metropolitan Planning Commission, along with volunteers from Pedestrian Advocates of the Coastal Empire. On the tour were attendees of the Governors Highway Safety Association convention including Tom Vanderbilt, who’s done critical work to help America understand Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us). Vanderbilt wrote about his experience in Savannah here. Also on the Tour was Dan Burden, the nation’s leading expert on walkable communities.

Tuesday: Burden met with a group of City of Savannah staff representing a range of bureaus from the fire department to Park and Tree. Later, Burden and neighborhood association members visited areas of the Southside that have been seriously degraded by automobile traffic volume and speed that are incompatible with neighborhood streets. Burden explained how traffic calming could address these problems and suggested ways to modify poor street design that stands in the way of greater walkability. The neighborhood visits were covered in the media here and here.

Wednesday: At a public forum, Burden presented a program on traffic calming to about 150 citizens at Armstrong Atlantic State University. Burden used photographs taken earlier in the week to demonstrate problems and solutions, such as on-street bicycle parking.

Thursday: Burden conducted a workshop for members of the city’s new Traffic Calming Committee, which is made up of neighborhood association leaders and facilitated by the Citizens Liaison Office. They were joined by personnel from the Savannah Chatham Metropolitan Police Department, Parking and Mobility Services and other city departments.

Friday: Savannah Mayor Otis Johnson led the September edition of the Savannah Bicycle Campaign’s 2 Wheels 2 Work monthly bicycle commuting convoy. He spoke at a press conference in Johnson Square, emphasizing how bicycles fit into the city’s Thrive and Healthy Savannah initiatives.  A new public service announcement, aimed at educating motorists on how to share the streets with cyclists, was screened at the press conference. Bicycle-friendly businesses Jittery Joe’s and Blue Goose Cafe provided coffee and breakfast for bicycle commuters.

Saturday: More than 400 cyclists turned out for the Savannah Bicycle Campaign’s Midnight Garden Ride. It’s always thrilling to see bicycles greatly outnumbering cars on Savannah’s streets, if only for a couple moments. Even bikes at rest provided an important visual clue about how increased bicycling can help Savannah. At the Distillery, where the ride began and ended, hundreds of bicycles were parked in the space required to store only a dozen or so cars.

Sunday: The Savannah Morning News was full of stories on walking and bicycling. City Talk Columnist Bill Dawers wrote an insightful column on Burden’s visit. Adam Van Brimmer wrote about the link between walkability and higher property values and Arek Sarkissian covered the Midnight Garden Ride.

Still, in order to get more citizens out of their cars and on their feet and bikes, we need an environment that is safe and friendly. Other news, this week, of a pedestrian injured and a cyclist killed underscores how far we have to go. Progress toward more livable streets can help reduce the frequency of these troubling and tragic occurrences. Does this week represent the beginning of Savannah’s new era of livable Streets?