Other neighborhoods on the list are in Oakland; Denver; Washington, D.C.; Dorchester, Mass.; Jackson, Miss.; St. Louis; Albany, N.Y.; Richmond, Va.; and Seattle.

I know some people who live in the Victorian District who would scoff at this designation in the wake of a recent surge in crime on the east side of Forsyth Park, but the APA’s description of the neighborhood and its amenities is hard to ignore.

From the APA:

Savannah’s Victorian District lies immediately to the south of the well-known National Landmark Historic District. The Victorian District encompasses the West Victorian, East Victorian, and Dixon Park neighborhoods. This downtown neighborhood was developed in the second half of the 19th century as a streetcar suburb of the original city. It was designed in a compact, pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use development pattern with a modified ward structure and street grid from the original James Oglethorpe 1733 plan.

The APA description focuses heavily on the importance of Forsyth Park — the active south half of Forsyth is bounded by the Victorian District. This list of “Community Engagement and Amenities” is also interesting:

• Savannah Landmark Rehabilitation Project was founded to provide safe, affordable housing to low-income residents in the Victorian District (1974) and subsequently built 300 apartments for low-income renters in the neighborhood (1982)
• Park Place Outreach Youth Emergency Shelter, a 24-hour facility on the district’s east side, was renovated in 2008 through the collaboration of the Cowart Group, J.T. Turner, and SCAD students; one of the first LEED-certified nonprofit buildings in Savannah
• The neighborhood is home to the new headquarters of the Savannah Bicycle Campaign (SBC), a local bicycle advocacy group, which shares its space with its statewide counterpart, Georgia Bikes, along with Healthy Savannah — a local initiative dedicated to making Savannah a healthier place to live
• SBC and Healthy Savannah are working with the City of Savannah to encourage the adoption of a Complete Streets ordinance — in addition, SBC’s new facility will rehabilitate donated bikes for distribution to underserved populations to use as a dependable transportation option
• The American Legion complex serves as an excellent example of adaptive reuse; as a local neighborhood hangout it draws a diverse crowd with local shops, bars, and a variety of restaurant options

When I moved to Savannah in 1995, I rented a sprawling parlor floor apartment on the first block of East Gwinnett Street for, I think, $625/month. I think pretty much everyone in town would have laughed at the idea of such a glowing designation for the Victorian District, but less than 20 years later, here we are. Times change and neighborhoods change, sometimes quickly.

The designation does not mention Kroger, but the new store opened in 1995 on East Gwinnett. Nor does the APA mention businesses like Brighter Day Natural Foods and The Sentient Bean by name, but those have been critical to the sense of place. SCAD’s Eckburg and Anderson halls are also mentioned — they both lie at the southern edge of the Victorian District.

By the way, the historic cottages of Meldrim Row that the city plans to demolish are just three very short blocks south of the Victorian District. Along its eastern and western boundaries, the neighborhood has some real  blight, in part because of poor street design and inappropriate zoning.

In my City Talk column today, by the way, I consider the growing number of public uses along Bull Street from Victory Drive northward. I like to think of the Victorian neighborhood as more or less continuous with the Thomas Square Historic Streetcar District where I live.

For all the positive changes in the Victorian District in recent years, I think the prevailing sense around the neighborhood is that things can still improve dramatically from here. Imagine a productive use of the old Sears/DFACS building, which is simply priced too high for investors who are interested. Imagine the boon for the neighborhood if/when there is appropriate development at the southwest corner of Bull Street and Park Avenue. Imagine the advantages in terms of business investment when Montgomery Street through the Historic District is converted back to two-way traffic. There are also underutilized lots and buildings that are scattered throughout the neighborhood.

So, this is really nice news from the APA, but there is plenty of work ahead.

Since launching three months ago, Chatham Area Transitâ€s bike share program has sold 629 user passes, according to newly released data from the transit authority.

But the program, which provides short-term bike rentals to locals and tourists at two stations, is considered by CAT staff to be too small and in need of more annual members and greater connectivity.

In the generally good weather since mid-March, during prime tourist season here in Savannah, 14 bikes per day on average have been checked out. The entire piece in the SMN is well worth a read.

A few thoughts:

I’d actually say that 629 user passes is a pretty good number, but I’m left wondering how many locals essentially bought symbolic passes in the early days of the program as a show of support.

I was skeptical early on that the initial phase of CAT Bike was designed in ways that would attract “resident commuters.” The presence of just two stations — one at the transit center on the west side of MLK off Oglethorpe and another in Ellis Square — obviously limits the pool of potential riders. And, as I noted back in January, even as a regular bike rider around downtown, I don’t feel comfortable trying to cross MLK. The streets just aren’t designed appropriately to make cyclists feel safe.

Also, the two stations are really quite close together. If I were taking the bus into downtown and ultimately headed toward the City Market area, I’d just enjoy the free 10-minute walk rather than rent a bike.

And why would a local in the City Market area want to rent a bike and then return it to the exact same spot? The most obvious destinations — like River Street and Broughton Street — are within easy walking distance, and there aren’t stations in those places to return bikes. If there were other stations a little farther away, say in Forsyth Park or out in Habersham Village, we might actually see commuters and local shoppers availing themselves of the service. (Of course, additional stations will require additional public investment.)

Also, it’s obviously worth noting that the vast majority of those of us who advocate bicycling downtown already have our own bikes.

I’m glad that CAT has made this effort and hope that we’ll continue to explore ways to make the service work. My thoughts here are shared by others in an interesting Twitter discussion thread prompted by the Savannah Bicycle Campaign.

I left Armstrong at 12:32 p.m. and headed north on Abercorn. I got caught at a couple of lights — the one near Burger King and then the one at Largo — but then peeled off onto the northbound Truman. At 12:37, I was at the Whitefield Avenue intersection.

As I knew would happen, my route all the way down to Henry Street and then west to my house near Forsyth Park was a longer distance than the straight shot down Abercorn or White Bluff, but the entire trip from Armstrong to my house near Forsyth Park took 17 minutes — a hassle-free 17 minutes. Ordinarily, at 12:30 on a busy Friday around town, that trip would take at least 5 or 6 minutes more.

And, on that more time-consuming trip, I’d end up trying to fight through a whole series of congested intersections.

There were about 8 cars that turned onto the Truman at the same time that I did, with all of unnecessarily in the far right lane on Abercorn even though there are two turn lanes for northbound drivers. But the clump of cars quickly spaced itself out, and the only inkling of an issue was a car off Whitefield merging too slowly onto the Truman. That’s going to be a tricky spot for some Skidaway Island residents to get used to — they’ll now have to think about merging after years of being at the parkway’s terminus.

The new stretch of the Truman is a little flatter and straighter than the older phases.

Next time I’ll try getting off at the Victory Drive intersection. The congestion on Victory is concentrated east of the Truman — that might be a faster route than continuing all the way to Henry.

Also, it’s worth noting that my morning trip to Armstrong via Bull, White Bluff, Abercorn, and Middleground typically takes less than 20 minutes. So I don’t know if it will be worth taking the Truman for that part of the commute.

I won’t recap that entire column here, but Dover’s ideas — both generally and specifically about Savannah — are well worth consideration.

Dover emphasizes, with overwhelming evidence, that great streets in cities around the world are bustling with a variety of types of transportation. Cars are generally present in that mix, but their speeds are kept within reasonable limits and the design of the street actively encourages pedestrianism, bicycling, and other forms of transportation.

Effective streets often include ample parking, although that was not the emphasis of Dover’s presentation. Parked cars help shield pedestrians from active traffic and also slow drivers down. A critical mass of on-street parking also boosts businesses and allows drivers to access neighborhood commercial districts from a variety of directions at various times of day.

Dover showed a slide of St. Charles Avenue in New Orleans and asked his Savannah audience about the ruts along the streetcar line in the neutral ground. I had the answer of course — the neutral ground is also perfect for joggers. Also, it’s worth noting that the St. Charles Avenue median is wide enough to allow cross traffic to cross the street one lane at a time, eliminating any demand for stoplights along long stretches of the road.

Also worth noting: St. Charles Avenue, which now also features a bike lane, has just one lane for cars in each direction. Those lanes handle a lot of cars each day, but they don’t crowd out other uses — and they don’t interfere with the street’s beauty. Here’s a shot I took in 2009 of St. Charles Avenue:

Click here for another post about St. Charles from summer 2013, which included this image:

Dover’s recent talk at the SCAD Museum of Art was also referenced last week in John Bennett’s Connect Savannah column If we win the parking war, we lose the city. I always enjoy and appreciate Bennett’s columns, but I think he hit the ball out of the proverbial park with this one.

From that column:

In Savannah, however, there seems to be something else at work. Millions of people come from all over the world every year to enjoy strolling our streets. Yet some of us just can’t tolerate walking a couple of blocks from our cars to our destinations, even in one of the most beautiful cities in North America.

Should we fine tune the pricing of on-street parking to reflect market rates as Shoup suggests, extend hours of operation at municipal garages and find other ways to maximize the usefulness of our existing parking inventory? Certainly.

However, entertaining unreasonable expectations of suburban-style parking in a historic city is potentially disastrous, as explained by Savannah-based urban designer Kevin Klinkenberg.

“Savannah can, like so many other cities, solve its parking problem by building a lot of convenient, cheap parking,” he said. “And when we are done with that, we will have destroyed the reasons people love Savannah in the first place.”

As I’ve noted over and over and over in my various writings, there are many things we can do to expand the inventory of on-street parking, including lengthening the time on some meters in areas that are often nowhere near capacity.

And let me pick up on one other element of Dover’s talk. He mentioned the possibility of recreating the walkway under the trees down the middle of the Oglethorpe Avenue median. I think it’s a wonderful idea. Just a few weeks ago, I was down that way and pulled out my iPhone and took this photo looking east from Montgomery Street.

Who wouldn’t want to walk on a path between these trees, even with vehicular travel lanes on either side?

Ironically, the program begins on Friday — among the coldest days we’ve had in this surprisingly cold winter.

From the piece:

For now, adult residents and visitors (or those 16 and older, with a parent or guardian), can sign up for a 24-hour, seven-day or annual membership, either online or at one of the two stations. Each membership, $5, $20 and $60 respectively, allows for a certain amount of usage time, with an additional $2 charge for every half hour over that allotted.

Although created primarily for the use of resident commuters, visitors could also benefit from the program, using the bikes to navigate Savannahâ€s tiny downtown streets instead of having to rent, drive or park a car.

I’m not really sure that the program is of primary interest to “resident commuters”, although I know a number of downtown workers who have already or will soon buy the relatively inexpensive (maybe too inexpensive) annual memberships for $60. Check out Kevin Klinkenberg’s post about the low price on his New Urbanism blog.

CAT Bike will launch with only two locations — Ellis Square and Rivers Exchange. But keep in mind that Rivers Exchange is not on River Street — it’s at the Joe Murray Rivers, Jr. Intermodal Transit Center on Oglethorpe Avenue. In theory, a commuter taking the bus could have a $60 annual membership and take a bike every day to and from Ellis Square and the transit center.

But, as I have noted ad nauseum, that’s a dicy area to ride a bike. I ride my bike all over downtown, but I hate trying to cross MLK. The traffic patterns are threatening and unfriendly in multiple ways. If I were working in the Ellis Square area and taking the bus into town every day, I’d simply enjoy the 10 minute walk each way.

For those who work near Ellis Square and need to run quick errands — delivering packages, picking up lunch for the office, etc. — that station might prove really convenient. Some tourists, too, will no doubt be curious about the system and anxious to get a little farther south into the Historic District that the tourist-oriented area around City Market.

I should note, however, that the new CAT Bike station in Ellis Square has replaced a series of bike racks that often had 10 to 20 parked bicycles. As of this writing, I’m not sure if those have simply been moved, but I actually had a little problem recently finding an adequate spot to lock up — and it’s wintertime. The old bike racks in Ellis Square are just around the square from the sharing station. (I don’t know how I couldn’t find them the other night.) See the pic embedded from the Savannah Bicycle Campaign’s Instagram account.

But enough with the speculation. The program, however limited, is set to launch on 1/24, and we’ll know a lot more in a few weeks about who is participating in Savannah’s new bike share program and how often they are using the service.

The piece talks about the recent “report card” released by the Georgia branch of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

From the piece:

Category grades included: Bridges (C-), roads (C-), dams (D-), aviation (C+), drinking water (C+), energy (B), parks and recreation (D+), rail (B), ports (C+), schools (C+), storm water (D+), transit (D-), wastewater (C+), and solid waste (C+).

Georgiaâ€s growing population combined with cutbacks in infrastructure funding resulted in many of the low grades. For example:

• Georgia ranks 49th in the nation in per capita transportation funding.

• Georgiaâ€s state motor fuel excise tax, which funds surface transportation projects, is one of the lowest in the United States.

• Georgia is among the lowest in the country in transit spending per resident. Georgia spent just $0.63 per person in 2008, compared to $119.52 per person spent by New Jersey, $40.43 by Illinois and $7.94 by North Carolina in the same year, according to the American Public Transportation Associationâ€s 2010 Survey of State Funding for Public Transportation.

• MARTA — Atlantaâ€s public transit system — is the largest transit agency in the country that does not receive state funding support for operations.

Closer to home, the group stressed the importance of the Port of Savannah.

Now, I suppose one could say that an organization of engineers would have a bias toward new building and better maintenance of infrastructure.

But some of the data are still sobering, especially when it comes to transportation and transit. One reason I supported the failed T-SPLOST of 2012 was that Georgia is so far down the list in funding for those items — and we’re one of the fastest growing states.

Clearly, the state’s economy has a stake in efficient transit in the Atlanta metro area, but we’ve allowed that region to balkanize when it comes to such a straightforward need.

It will be interesting to see how bad some corridors are allowed to get before the general public feels they need to be addressed. Let’s hope that we don’t have any catastrophic failures that cost lives before we address issues like aging bridges and imperiled drinking water sources.

The Truman has been delayed for so many years — even decades — that it seems almost unimaginable that it will actually open soon. (What do you want to bet there will be a delay this time too?)

I’m thrilled that the road will be opening, though I fear that it will get more traffic right away than some are expecting. There are lots of us who live in the downtown area and work pretty far out on the Southside, or vice versa, who will immediately begin using the Truman for at least one leg of our daily commutes.

Depending on the exact time of day, my drives from Thomas Square to and from Armstrong can range anywhere from a calm and easy 15 minutes to a pretty irritating 25+ minutes. I still might take White Bluff and Middleground in the mornings occasionally after the Truman opens, but my afternoons leaving Armstrong will almost certainly be on the Truman.

There has been speculation that the opening of the final leg of the Truman will flood a portion of the Southside with traffic, but I’m not so worried about that. I think the vast majority of drivers arriving in the extreme Southside via the Truman were folks who were headed that way no matter what. I expect certain stretches of Abercorn to be much less congested through the day, and the Truman’s final leg should also alleviate traffic on some other major streets, like Whitefield Avenue and Montgomery Crossroad.

It’s going to be interesting to see.

But my fellow blogger Ed at Peach Pundit says: “At the risk of sounding slightly hyperbolic, this and the Savannah Port deepening are probably the single most important pieces of infrastructure in the works for Atlanta and the state. Also having a strategic plan for smart growth that is nearly two-decades long is a really refreshing change for Atlanta.”

I’m guessing the Beltline ends up being far more important than the port deepening.

In the post, Ed references this piece in Creative Loafing: Beltline board OKs 17-year plan outlining what gets built and when – and it’s worth a read. It begins:

When will the Atlanta Beltline start construction on the massive Westside park and lake centered around an abandoned quarry? Will the smart-growth project’s southeast trail linking Glenwood Park to Adair Park be built in our lifetime? And what about the transit component circling the city’s core, potentially connecting more than 45 neighborhoods?

You now have an easy place to find the answers to these questions. And see how it’s envisioned to evolve over the next 17 years.

Atlanta Beltline Inc., the nonprofit tasked with planning and developing the 22-mile loop of parks, trails, and transit, has officially released its “strategic implementation plan,” or SIP, a 140-page document that outlines how the project will progress from now until 2030. ABI’s board of directors unanimously approved the plan this morning.

From the conclusion of that report, which I will embed below:

The first seven years the Atlanta BeltLine implementation have set the City of Atlantaâ€s future on a positive trajectory. The strong community response to the planning process, and especially the completed projects, has demonstrated that the publicâ€s appetite is not yet satisfied. Likewise, private real estate development has responded in a dramatic fashion to the Atlanta BeltLine, even through the Great Recession.

New private real estate development completed or un-derway within a half-mile of the Eastside Trail alone has approached $775 million, and more than $1 billion within the TAD. The Atlanta BeltLine is now a tangible reality and is already fulfilling some of its promise. The SIP will guide ABI and its partners through the year 2030 with a thoughtful, flexible approach that will help secure all of the necessary funding and achieve the programâ€s objectives.

Atlanta Beltline Strategic Implementation by thomaswheatley

I’m impressed by this whole project.