figure it out
I need to find out details of this creek restoration and design, especially how all the urban hardscaping holds up during floods. Do they remove the steel fish sculpture during high flows? Do the bridges back up with debris? The channel does not look very wide, although it is deep. I think that the city unearthed a culvert to daylight this creek. This area near the historic Mission and plaza seems like the center of human activity.
NyTimes Article: Prague’s emergency floodwalls held up during Summer 2002 floods. From the article:
“I thank God and the wall,” said Rabbi Sidon as he looked up at his temporary sanctuary, the 19th-century Jerusalem Synagogue. The wall, which rescue workers named the Wall of Hope, is a fence of interlocking aluminum slats that was hurriedly put into place on the bank of the Vltava as floodwaters began to rise on Monday.
By today, the local tabloid Blesk had crowned its builder, a Moravian businessman named Ladislav Srubek, as “the man who saved Prague.” Foundations for the $2,000,000 wall, designed by a German firm after floods hit the city of Cologne a decade ago, were put in place several years ago. “It’s not a miracle, it’s just a smart piece of engineering,” Mr. Srubek said in a telephone interview. He said plans and permits had been in place to extend the wall to other parts of the city, but it had not been a
priority for the local government.
The substantial costs of flood walls can be justified by the value of commercial property thus protected from damage caused by flooding. Flood walls are almost solely used in cities, notably:
Owning a home in walkable neighborhoods saves residents $300 to $400 a month, up to 4,800 a year, on gas expenses alone, according to research by the Congress for the New Urbanism.
A recent Forbes article focuses on access to mass transit as a major factor in America’s Most Fuel-Efficient Neighborhoods. You can rate the walkability of any neighborhood via walkscore.com, just enter an address. While public transit is tremendously important, walkability seems critical to reducing our carbon footprint.
Blogs to keep an eye on:
http://www.livablestreets.com/
http://neighborhoods.org/
