Here’s a whizzy reel showing what the new Metro trains and stations on 4 upcoming light-rail lines are supposed to look like. Dowling St. in the Third Ward, the Edloe Station in Greenway Plaza, the Moody Park Station on the North Line, MacGregor Park Station on the Southeast Line, and Lockwood Station on the East End Line each get about 30 seconds of CGI treatment, from a low-flying camera buzzing some extremely lifelike — though torpid — pedestrians.
Christof Spieler finds a few flaws:
The Third Ward footage seems to be out-of-date; it shows the old alignment crossing Dowling on Wheeler, not the new route that switches to Alabama. But other details are correct: the stations shown are the new prototype station design (by Rey de la Reza Architects), minus artwork.
It’s nice to be able to visualize what these lines might look like. But it’s also a reminder that it’s important to get the details right. At Edloe, for example, the trees integrated into the canopy are nice, but there’s no crosswalk at the west end of the station platform, which means a 500-foot detour for some riders. The Moody Park and MacGregor stations do show that crosswalk, and the sidewalks look pretty good, too. But in all the images, the overhead wires are suspended from their own poles in the middle of the street, not from the streetlight poles on either side, as on Main Street. That makes for more poles and a more cluttered streetscape.
Comment of the Day: Third Ward Arts District
“‘So how dicey is it really and when will it become artsy and then trendy?’ Question of the day! As Montrose ex-pats now living on Dowling St. I can tell you that we have experienced NO crime in the year we have been here. As for artsy, you can walk to Rick Lowe’s Row House installation and the relocated Flower Man house, among several other art spaces, from our new home. Artsy, yes. Trendy, very thankfully no.” [Cranky Old Coot, commenting on Home Sweet Funeral Home: Washington Terrace Mortuary Seeks Residents]