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I recently sat down with Downtown LA blogger and advocateBrigham Yento talk about his neighborhood. The subject was Downtown and how even as it makes an amazing comeback with an unprecedented influx of stores, restaurants, offices, and apartments, there are still some people who don’t seem to get what it means to be urban.
For every storefront welcoming pedestrians, there still seems to be a chain store that wants to keep things the way they’ve always been. Yen told me that In-N-Out Burgers had been interested in moving Downtown but couldn’t understand why it couldn’t install a drive-through. He noted that other establishments, from drug stores to fast food restaurants, still insist on building strip-mall-style parking in heavily pedestrianized precincts, ruining any sense of street front or walkability.
Such businesses need to get over it and realize that the whole city does not need to be a bastion of surburban-ity. With its immense population, density, and energy, LA can no longer pretend to be a suburb. A city has got to be a city. That doesn’t mean ruining LA’s peaceful neighborhoods. It means densifying its urban commercial and retail corridors in an intelligent fashion. And Downtown is a prime example of one of these corridors. Its urbanity is a prime reason why it’s becoming so popular again.
This is becoming even more important as the city begins to shift its policies more aggressively toward mass transit and related density. By the time the funds for Measure R, the city sales tax paying for $30 to $40 billion worth of projects, run out, the city will have increased its rail lines from about 60 miles to 120 miles.
A major test of Downtown’s continued development will come when Walmart moves its newest Neighborhood Market, a smaller version of its superstores (though still pretty big at 33,000 square feet) into Chinatown, on the north edge of Downtown. LA’s citizens, who have already engaged in a major protest against the retail giant’s plans, need to be vigilant to make sure that Walmart doesn’t further decay the fabric of a neighborhood, and the city, at a vital turning point.
I could be wrong, but my read of the article gave me a different impression. It sounds like it's saying that "strip-mall style" is what many businesses WANT to be allowed to build, and have been staying out of the market entirely because they are not, in fact, allowed to do so.
I think the best place to build more skyscrapers in LA is the parking lots south of Downtown and east of the Staples Center and LA Live. Thats the best place to build them.
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Yen told me that In-N-Out Burgers had been interested in moving Downtown but couldn’t understand why it couldn’t install a drive-through.
At least it's good they won't let them build a drive-through. Another major west coast American city allowed a NEW drive-through to be built on the edge of it's greater downtown area (about 1 mile from it's CBD) within the last decade. In Toronto it would be inconceivable for a new drive through to be built even within 2 miles of the CBD in this day and age, never mind one mile. In fact, I believe new drive throughs were banned within about a 3-4 mile radius of the CBD a number of years ago.
Why can't we just implement drive-throughs into cities? There doesn't have to be a lot of them. After all, pedestrians are not the only people going through downtowns. As dense as NYC is, there's a couple of drive throughs in Manhattan and a few in the outer boroughs. And LA needs these until its public transit rivals its highways.
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"Action is the foundational key to all success."-Pablo Picasso
Just keep building. Higher and higher.
Nonsense. No place "needs" drive throughs. If someone can't get park their car and get their fat, lazy ass out of their car seat to go in, make a purchase, and walk back out, they can do without.
Most suburbs are so far gone that additional drive throughs aren't really ruining anything. But unless you can show me a design for a drive-through with no curb cut, than they don't belong in an urban environment.
I agree but what if people are in a hurry and have no time to wait for a meal. Especially when they have to wait for long lines inside the establishment or in a city where free parking requires walking a long way to your destination. Let's be honest, most Americans want to get where they need to go without much wait as many of them still don't appreciate the urban fabric. Before drive-throughs are to removed in higher numbers in LA, encouraging the public to be less car-centric.
__________________
"Action is the foundational key to all success."-Pablo Picasso
Just keep building. Higher and higher.
I agree but what if people are in a hurry and have no time to wait for a meal. Especially when they have to wait for long lines inside the establishment
From my experience the wait is usually longer in the drive thru than it is waiting inside.
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most Americans want to get where they need to go without much wait as many of them still don't appreciate the urban fabric.
That may be true, but "most Americans" probably have little understanding of how lots of "little things" (like drive-thrus) collectively make an area worse over time. Besides, I've little interest in what "most Americans" think on the matter. I give much more credence to people on forums such as this.
It would be nice if they would throw out all but the most basic zoning laws, but unfortunately even if a local government does that the national and state governments give such strong preference to oil subsidies, car subsidies and automobile transit infrastructure it wouldn't really matter and it would end up being more like Houston.
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What are y'alls thoughts on banks in downtowns having drive-troughs?
Like there is this bank in Austin that wants to build a big new bank building in one of the best locations in the downtown (on 5th Street next to Republic Park) and they want to put in a drive-trough which is very upsetting. All around the building on the streets they are planning lots of street retail and all of that is nice and all, but still a drive-though in that part of town seems really bad. But should banks be exempt from those sorts of rules?
I only ask because we put on events and when our managers do their morning deposits many prefer to go and use the branch with the drive-troughs because they don't like walking with all that money. So not sure how I feel about the new bank building going in at 5th that wants to include the drive-trough. What do y'all think of those sorts of cases?
At least it's good they won't let them build a drive-through. Another major west coast American city allowed a NEW drive-through to be built on the edge of it's greater downtown area (about 1 mile from it's CBD) within the last decade.
That's what got me. As far as I know, nothing built in the past ten years has 'strip mall style parking'. I wonder what they were referring to...
He might mean pedestrian areas outside of downtown. Koreatown has had a at least a couple built since then. Other pedestrian places as well. Obviously the general trend has been away from that style and that's happened without it being required by zoning because both parking and land are at such a premium. So we're still getting parking, just that it's mostly in a garage or underground.
As far as strip mall style parking being built downtown in the last decade or so, I can't think of any.
Regarding fast food drive-thrus... could we build over them?
Photo Credit: Shrimp56
^ What if we could build something like this one in Minneapolis, except have the drive-thru on the first floor and a little bit further into the building to allow for retail space on the left side of the drive-thru, facing the street (which i believe, in this picture, is Marquette ave?)...
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I agree but what if people are in a hurry and have no time to wait for a meal. Especially when they have to wait for long lines inside the establishment or in a city where free parking requires walking a long way to your destination. Let's be honest, most Americans want to get where they need to go without much wait as many of them still don't appreciate the urban fabric. Before drive-throughs are to removed in higher numbers in LA, encouraging the public to be less car-centric.
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