Brandon Donnelly — Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly. — Page 1166

Detroit has started testing its new streetcars on Woodward Avenue. Quicken Loans bought the naming rights to the line, so it’s now officially called the QLINE. If you’re British, this name probably won’t instil feelings of rapidity.

Here’s a recent tweet from M1-Rail ( click here if it doesn’t show up below):

The #QLINE is back on the road for testing today! Take a pic and tag @M1RAIL if you see the streetcar. #WeMoveDetroit pic.twitter.com/K42aHxebgG

— M-1 RAIL (@M1RAIL)

December 16, 2016

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Note how the train is running curbside.

There’s lots of debate about the economic benefits of streetcar/LRT over other transit solutions such as BRT. But if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ll probably know that I am a supporter of light rail .

In the case of Detroit, I also think there’s symbolic importance to bringing back light rail to the core of the city. The last Detroit streetcar was shut down in 1956 .

It’s also worth mentioning how the streetcar line was funded. Below is a breakdown of funding sources dated 2014 .

There may have been some changes since then, but it’s positive to see the public and private sectors come together, alongside a large infusion of philanthropic money (The Kresge Foundation).

Many of the companies on the above list sponsored individual stations . The cost to do so was $3 million, which is why you see that number show up a few times. Compuware and JP Morgan Chase shared a station at $1.5 million each.

Is this a transit funding model worth replicating?

I have written about the Berlin-based publication Freunde von Freunden (FvF) before. I love the content that they put out – particularly their interviews. They’re personal and genuine. Pretty much the opposite of traditional marketing, though you could call some of it content marketing.

One series that they do – called Home Stories – is done in collaboration with Siemens Home Appliances. What they do is explore innovative urban living solutions through the lenses of global city inhabitants. 

There’s everyone from a marketing consultant who built a house boat to an architect who converted an old lingerie factory into an “antivilla” along the water.

Below is a video of Juerg Judin explaining how and why he decided to convert an old 50′s gas station in Berlin into a home and gallery. Click here if you can’t see the video below.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPsbOT2dG9A?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

In this case, he bought the gas station in 2005. But he first saw the for sale sign in 1992. And that was a good seven years after it was originally listed. So this property had been sitting for a while . 

It’s hard to imagine a central property like this sitting for so long in a place like Toronto. But I think it’s partly opportunities such as these that have made Berlin the city that it is today. New ideas require old buildings .

I like this comparison of street grids that Daniel Nairn prepared back in 2010:

There’s huge variation here. On the one end you have cities like Carson City, Portland, and Providence, which have small blocks (180′ x 180′ and 200′ x 200′). And on the other end you have cities like Salt Lake City, which have massive blocks (660′ x 660′). 

This variation creates very different experiences for both pedestrians and drivers. It is widely understood that small blocks are better for walking, which is perhaps why Salt Lake City is known as a driving city. (I just learned that they have “ crosswalk flags ” to help pedestrians safely cross the street. What does that tell you?)

In the case of New York – with its irregular rectangular blocks – it is arguably one of the reasons why the avenues (short side of the rectangle) have such a different feel than the streets (long side of the rectangle). Walking north-south is more enjoyable than walking east-west.

All of this is even more interesting in the context of the point I made in this post : once these urban grids get laid out, they’re pretty sticky. That has far reaching implications.