Kennedy Plaza’s intermodal bus terminal and five elegant waiting kiosks. (thepolisblog.com)
Here is a fascinating and extremely useful time-lapse video of Kennedy Plaza that, in two and a half minutes, shows buses and riders entering and leaving the plaza from 3:05 p.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 1, 2012. To me it shows how well used the plaza is, and how effective it is for bus riders. The city hopes to convince the public that the plaza is inadequate. Maybe this video can be used to suggest that, but to me it suggests the reverse. It might have been more instructive if it had been shot from a window in the court house at the other end of the plaza, rather than from City Hall. After all, it is the crowding of the commuters at bus stops and the supposed congestion of the buses themselves that is at issue, and most of that takes place beyond the intermodal center at the center of the video.
I will address the changes proposed for Kennedy Plaza in my next column.
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About David Brussat
This blog was begun in 2009 as a feature of the Providence Journal, where I was on the editorial board and wrote a weekly column of architecture criticism for three decades. Architecture Here and There fights the style wars for classical architecture and against modern architecture, no holds barred.
History Press asked me to write and in August 2017 published my first book, "Lost Providence." I am now writing my second book.
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David,
Kennedy Plaza is problematic. It’s become a catch basin for winos and trouble makers (There, I said it). Better to decentralize KP and attract new investment via a thorough makeover. It pains me to say it, but a wider good will come by creating a series of bus-transit nodes, vs. bunching it all up (Much like Boston’s subway hubs). Besides, too much of single thing is always a bore. Lets embrace new possibilities. Lets attract investment by making KP something more diverse and compelling; a showcase for civic design through ample reinvestment via this catalyst of new urban hubs within a re-emerging Downtown Providence.
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