Paul Milstein Hall

What's the reception around campus to the design? Here are the animations.

I don't know about the reception around campus but I found that large overhang to be a bit harsh and claustrophobia inducing. I feel trapped underneath it. It would make an excellent toll plaza.

But I am most concerned about the ghostlike zombies that are apparently running around campus.

Seems to me that with the E-W opening it will create quite the wind tunnel effect.

Luke 05
Seems to me that with the E-W opening it will create quite the wind tunnel effect.

Similar to the Clark Hall tunnel, which is now covered up by the new physical sciences building.

The asphalt will never be smoother, the pavement markers brigher than in the animation. The animation makes you want to grab a controller, speed up the animation, and punt the pedestrians. In addition to the wind effect under the overhang, perhaps it will collect debris, seem dark and musty, and be ill-lit much of the time. I wish the overhang continued all the way to the gorge. Or there was a smaller, mirror image building on the gorge side with its own overhang and netting and triple-sealed windows (regardless of there being a building in the way already).

If this gives Architecture more space and it benefits Cornell and students, then, good! It's impossible to design an architecture building without every prof thinking he could do better.

Honestly, it doesn't look that bad. Modern school of architecture values function and efficiency, thus the cantilever is a popular method of creating more space without setting more foundation. However, I wish the upper floor looks less rectangular. In any case, that building will be much better than the air conditioning-less Rand.

I feel sorry for the Fine Arts Library, which has lost much natural light and any view. The building just created a bunch of interior rooms in Sibley out of what used to be rooms with nice windows and light. Ummm, atrium and skylights?

I have the feeling that nobody, I mean nobody, will ever get out on the green roof. Yet, somebody might: better put up a fence.

The cantilever is a bit ridiculous, but that little extra bit that pokes around the side of Sibley is even more so. It screams, as I've said before, "Look at me! I got my building on the landmarked Arts Quad! Hahhah!"

Think about how much money is being spent to create a two-level underground parking structure. Well, maybe don't think too hard about it. What we continue to do in our society at the behest of our four-wheeled masters.

And what's with the fussily ornamental ceiling tiles? Were they trying to be ironic? As someone who happens to like the period of architectural history in which those tiles would have been appropriate, I find it kind of insulting. If you're going to modernist, and Milstein is an overwhelmingly modernist building (and, therefore, quite old-fashioned itself), be serious about it and do it well. Don't be cute.

Maybe the interior spaces will impress. More likely, they'll just be antiseptic, functionless, and anxiety-producing. Seriously, who needs a fishbowl for a lecture hall?

Parking is an endangered species at Cornell. The campus has enough trees, just not in the right places.

Parking is as endangered as it should be; universities should be for walkers and cyclists.

There's always A Lot and the bus. I may be off base, but I doubt that it's in faculty contracts that they have an inalienable right to be able to waddle out of their cars and be in their offices in < 5 min.

Scersk '97
Parking is as endangered as it should be; universities should be for walkers and cyclists.

Thank you for advocating forcing your preferences on other people, because what this world really needs is more busybodies telling other people how to live their lives. And I say this as someone who cycles to work every day.

If you want to bike or walk around campus, go ahead: there's nothing stopping you. I did it for 3 years before I brought a car to campus, and even then I pretty much used the car only to get to Wegmans. But why make it inordinately difficult for those who choose to drive? What makes your preference special, and theirs evil enough to be worthy of creeping prohibition?

Kyle Rose

Scersk '97
Parking is as endangered as it should be; universities should be for walkers and cyclists.

Thank you for advocating forcing your preferences on other people, because what this world really needs is more busybodies telling other people how to live their lives. And I say this as someone who cycles to work every day.

If you want to bike or walk around campus, go ahead: there's nothing stopping you. I did it for 3 years before I brought a car to campus, and even then I pretty much used the car only to get to Wegmans. But why make it inordinately difficult for those who choose to drive? What makes your preference special, and theirs evil enough to be worthy of creeping prohibition?

Why should we make it easy for people to drive? You know, there are external costs to driving for other users of the transportation network that are not born fully by the drivers. What about my lungs and my safety on my bike? What about the greater distances (and ugly distances) I have to walk to get through or around the lots? Sure, none of these things are stopping me, but they are raising the "cost." Can't I just turn around and say to you, "All those cars and parking lots are making it inordinately difficult for those who choose to walk or bike"?

Now, Kyle, don't get too upset. I'm not really a prohibitionist. I care mostly about the cost. They're spending an inordinate amount of money to build a few spaces, I assure you. Parking lots are expensive, especially double deckers. I think the mission of the university in building should be in providing instructional and lab space, not parking lots; if parking lots jack up the cost of building, I think it's kind of foolish to put them in, especially on land that is, for lack of a better term, "high value." I say "high value" because I happen to think that there is something to be said for density in achieving the instructional and production goals of the university. And cars are one of the many enemies of density. The Arts Quad and environs should be one of the university's dense spaces. And, yes, parking lots also offend against my sense of aesthetics; perhaps they offend against that of others as well. When will we put a value on aesthetics? Or shall we just pave the world for the sake of expediency?

Are people going to drive to Cornell? Sure. Frankly, many have to. Why they have to and why that sucks is a separate argument. But I think there are ways of satisfying drivers' needs without getting in the way of the majority of users of the high-value areas of campus and without building expensive parking lots as parts of new, ugly, modernist buildings. As I said, we have excess capacity at other points on campus. People can always drive and then finish their commute by walking, biking, or riding the bus. To do so isn't "inordinately difficult." I return to my point above: why should we make it easy?

Scersk '97

Kyle Rose

Scersk '97
Are people going to drive to Cornell? Sure. Frankly, many have to. Why they have to and why that sucks is a separate argument. But I think there are ways of satisfying drivers' needs without getting in the way of the majority of users of the high-value areas of campus and without building expensive parking lots as parts of new, ugly, modernist buildings. As I said, we have excess capacity at other points on campus. People can always drive and then finish their commute by walking, biking, or riding the bus. To do so isn't "inordinately difficult." I return to my point above: why should we make it easy?

Imagine you are a department talking to a prospective faculty member, trying to convince him to come teach at Cornell. When the subject of living and commuting in Ithaca comes up you say how you'll have to park somewhere in Cayuga Heights and take a bus ride into campus. Or you can walk! Please pay no attention to the steady 38 degree light rain falling outside my window. The job offer at Other School U just started looking a little mroe appealing.

Short version: a lot of folks consider ease of commute to be a greater quality of life issue than density. Is it worth the expense to cater to these people, faculty, staff and/or students? I don't know but I don't think it's a slam dunk. (Well, it probably is if you're talking about undergrads.)

And for the record, I grew up in Manhattan and love walkable, dense environments.

I choose to arrive on campus for homecoming in a Boeing CH-47 Chinook transport helicopter and park it in front of Lincoln Hall. Why isn't Cornell responding to what *I* WANT to do by not bulldozing the trees on the Arts Quad and building me a helipad? Also, let's fill in Libe Slope because I don't like walking up hills.

But my serious comment on this: When I was a tour guide for the engineering school, there was one mother-son pair on a tour. They asked if it was possible/difficult to bring a car with him as a student. I answered honestly, saying it's possible, but IMO was prohibitively expensive for someone like me. Campus permits were very expensive for undergrads, and as a result, I saw central campus as chiefly a pedestrian campus. Even living in Collegetown was a pain with a car with the odd-even regulations and expensive slum-lord lot costs. I watched as their eyes glazed over and watched CU probably slide down a notch on their list.

But you know, I didn't care. If you want a commuter campus, go to IC or Cortland some other school where there are vast expanses of concrete lots everywhere. The campus is what it is out of geography, and I'd rather not see the University change that to be more convenient. Be resourceful. Learn to adapt and get around your surroundings instead of trying to change them to cater to your desires of laziness and convenience. That's the type of person I am. I know this argument has enormous holes for Kyle & Keith to tear at, but I'm OK with that. It's just how I am.

If anything, I think it's gotten tougher & more expensive to have a car, since the nights/weekend permit restrictions have gone up in many of my old favorite campus lots.

I'd love to see data of undergraduate car ownership (basically those who took a car with them to Ithaca) over time. As an undergrad, there were few people I knew who brought cars to Ithaca. Taking the TCAT to the mall was pretty standard. By the mid-aughts, it seemed that seeing an undergrad without a car was pretty rare. In fact, I went to the towing lot with a regular poster of this board to get their car out after getting towed from parking illegally on campus. "Again?!" they said, "That's the third time this term!!" Pretty pricey for not wanting to walk, if you ask me.

KeithK
Short version: a lot of folks consider ease of commute to be a greater quality of life issue than density. Is it worth the expense to cater to these people, faculty, staff and/or students? I don't know but I don't think it's a slam dunk. (Well, it probably is if you're talking about undergrads.)

And for the record, I grew up in Manhattan and love walkable, dense environments.

Well, for the record, I grew up in good ol' Lansing, but, after living in Chicago for six years, I now love walkable, dense environments. I expected to, and I was not disappointed. (I'm currently in Philly, which presents different... challenges.) In fact, I used to commute to campus from my parents' place during the summers, so I know Cornell's parking difficulties intimately. (Used to park on Highland and walk across the suspension bridge to work at the Space Sciences Building. Yeah, it thunderstorms a lot in the summer.)

So what you mention has occurred to me. Add it to the list of things that make Cornell a somewhat unattractive place to be a professor, at least for some people. I find Ithaca a bit isolated, and the driving culture bothers me; I suppose others would relish the idea of forty acres, a mule, and a pretty short daily drive to work. So I understand the concept of parking as, shall we say, a recruitment tool. But do you think it's the newly-hired tenure-strivers that get those spots? Nah... they're status symbols. And Cornell professors have always been leaving for "greener pastures"; heck, the whole physics department up and left for Stanford at some point. Can't change the weather. Rather like the hockey team, I feel Cornell should be looking for "recruits" that will look past those problems. You know, the ones that will "get it."

I still contend that transferring to a bus is not "inordinately difficult." Perhaps the university should be striving to make it even less difficult rather than building more parking lots. (Bring back the trolley!) Or the university should focus on helping to improve TCAT, which, for a small system, is already pretty darn good. After all, a good bus system is a great alternative to walking or cycling for those Ithacating days.

Of course, the real answer, as always, is high-speed rail.

It's too bad eco-terrorist Luddite and enviro-rapist Minarchist are the only two conceivable approaches to this issue.

Trotsky
It's too bad eco-terrorist Luddite and enviro-rapist Minarchist are the only two conceivable approaches to this issue.

Like everything in this country, there can only be two choices. Black-White, Right-Wrong, Good-Bad, With Us-Against Us, Conservative-Liberal, Democrat-Republican, WalMart-Target, Big Mac-Whopper, Borders-B&N, Lowes-Home Depot, Wegmans-Tops, ATT-Verizon, Mac-PC, iPhone-Android, Yankees-Red Sox, Vampires-Warewolves, Pirates-Ninjas.

Duopoly!

Scersk '97
Why should we make it easy for people to drive? You know, there are external costs to driving for other users of the transportation network that are not born fully by the drivers. What about my lungs and my safety on my bike?

What about electric cars? What about safe drivers?

What about the greater distances (and ugly distances) I have to walk to get through or around the lots?

Properly-constructed parking would have little to no impact on this.

Sure, none of these things are stopping me, but they are raising the "cost." Can't I just turn around and say to you, "All those cars and parking lots are making it inordinately difficult for those who choose to walk or bike"?

My point is simply that the judgment of whether or not to provide convenient parking on central campus should be entirely economic and not subjective. If there's demand—which clearly there is—then Cornell should provide parking, even if they have to charge an arm and a leg for it to cover their costs. Period. See Keith's post for a poignant example of why this is a good idea.

That said, you do make many good points, many of which I agree with. But I still don't think these arguments should do more than inform Cornell's behavior on the margin: provide people with what they want, but absolutely try to change that demand curve over time. Trying to change that demand curve by limiting supply out of some "I know better than you do and therefore will limit your options" sense is what offends me. (Well, "offend" is a bit strong, but you know what I mean.) I advocate biking in and around the Boston area, and am involved in projects to expand bikeways and opportunities for safe riding with the goal of making it safer, easier, and thus more attractive to bike here; but at the same time I also have to drive here and recognize that others have reasons for driving, so I don't promote policies that make drivers' lives inordinately more difficult.

Parking lots are expensive, especially double deckers.

Sorry, but this is a red herring. I would be willing to bet lots of money that all the parking garages in Tompkins County cost far less than $60 million, the construction cost of Duffield Hall alone. This is all about people who don't like cars, or who have reserved spots outside Day Hall, setting policies for everyone else.

If I lived back at Cornell, I wouldn't drive to central campus either, except late at night or to run a quick errand. But I don't feel like my preferences are objectively better than others'.

Scersk '97
After all, a good bus system is a great alternative to walking or cycling for those Ithacating days.

How many times have you stood at a bus stop in 35° rain, waiting 20 minutes for a late bus? There's a reason why the neighborhoods in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville served by the subway are 50% more expensive than those served only by the bus system.

Scersk '97
So what you mention has occurred to me. Add it to the list of things that make Cornell a somewhat unattractive place to be a professor, at least for some people. I find Ithaca a bit isolated, and the driving culture bothers me; I suppose others would relish the idea of forty acres, a mule, and a pretty short daily drive to work. So I understand the concept of parking as, shall we say, a recruitment tool. But do you think it's the newly-hired tenure-strivers that get those spots? Nah... they're status symbols. And Cornell professors have always been leaving for "greener pastures"; heck, the whole physics department up and left for Stanford at some point. Can't change the weather. Rather like the hockey team, I feel Cornell should be looking for "recruits" that will look past those problems. You know, the ones that will "get it."

If a high school kid's eyes glaze over at the thought of no car on campus it's really not a big deal. There's a plenty big pool of applicants and so losing some portion due to car-unfriendliness is not likely to impact the quality of the student pool. (On the other hand, if the kid has a great slapshot...) The pool of high quality researchers to hire as professors is a lot smaller so you have to be careful with decisions that might affect this kind of recruiting. of course, since it's hard to accurately measure peoples' preferences you end up with a bunch of subjectivity even if you try to rely on an economic analysis as Kyle proposes.

It's not clear that it is best for the university to try to recruit professors who will "get it" and stick around for the long haul. It might make more sense to shoot for the best and brightest even knowing that a significant portion may choose to move on to greener pasturess.
There are competing priorities that need to be balanced.

KeithK
The pool of high quality researchers to hire as professors is a lot smaller so you have to be careful with decisions that might affect this kind of recruiting. of course, since it's hard to accurately measure peoples' preferences you end up with a bunch of subjectivity even if you try to rely on an economic analysis as Kyle proposes.

Legendary physicist Richard Feynman had turned down several offers to go elsewhere because he felt Cornell had given him everything he ever wanted, as well as the presence of Hans Bethe. It wasn't until he was installing tire chains with numb hands during a sudden Ithaca snowstorm that the thought "why am I doing this?" popped into his head, and he decided to jump to CalTech. And even then he had doubts when he first moved, as the SoCal air quality impacted his breathing while simply waiting for the bus in another "why am I doing this?" moment. (At least that's what I recall from the book "Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman!" )

Nobody uses tire chains in Ithaca anymore. Had winter tire, studded tire, or even all-season tire technology had advanced sooner, Feynman may have stayed his entire career at Cornell.

Kyle Rose

Scersk '97
After all, a good bus system is a great alternative to walking or cycling for those Ithacating days.

How many times have you stood at a bus stop in 35° rain, waiting 20 minutes for a late bus? There's a reason why the neighborhoods in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville served by the subway are 50% more expensive than those served only by the bus system.

Well... I have. Many times. And it sucks. The area in which I lived in Chicago was notorious for poor bus service despite high ridership levels. Thank god we lived a four-minute walk from the Red Line, which made getting downtown and northwards easy. But when we headed to any other area of the city, we suffered.

Indeed, I kind of hate busses, but they're the only choice that Ithacans (in the broadest sense) will have in the reasonable future, so I'd like to see the area work hard on making the system work well for the greatest number of people. As it is, you could live in Ithaca without a car. Though it certainly wouldn't be easy, that level of service is pretty impressive for a small city. Yet it could always be better, especially with regard to suburb to city commutes.

(Regional transportation, or the complete lack of coordination thereof, is another matter entirely. Each county has its own bus network, but the information even on routes and scheduling is hard to come by for those counties not Tompkins; in fact, they all link up, but you'd never know it.)

I guess we'll differ on the expense of parking lots. Just as you would be willing to bet that those parking garages have cost less than $60 mil, I'd be willing to bet that the users of those garages have born nowhere near the cost; indeed, I'd be willing to bet that a significant amount of general fund money went into building each lot, and that bugs me. I assert that one of the most persistent and pernicious myths in our society is that parking is paid for out of user fees, permits, and enforcement revenue. So, I'll get behind parking structures when I see private corporations buy the land for them at market price, build their own structures, maintain their own structures, and charge their own prices.

Of course, most people would level the same criticisms at public transport. I do see it—I do. But I submit that the level of government funding for driving far outweighs the level of funding for public transport, even though good transport could far more equitably serve a greater number of people for a lower cost. The books have been cooked in favor of private automobiles, and they've been cooked for quite some time now, so getting people to make a true accounting of the money being spent will always be difficult.

Since I think you (if not, my mistake) lean that direction, I'll say that the libertarian transportation argument has a lot to be said for it. I'm all for highway tolls; I'm all for user fees based on miles traveled. I want a gas tax that reflects all the costs involved in the use of internal combustion engine propelled vehicles so that we can rebuild and then maintain the infrastructure we already have. (Or, better, sell off the highways to groups that, because they make or lose money through tolling, will either maintain them or let them rot.) Indeed, I know libertarians are generally suspicious of taxing, but how do they feel about gas taxes or vehicle-mile taxing? How do libertarians expect to pay for, say, city, town, and rural streets, county highways, and other aspects of car infrastructure. (This is the area that bugs me about the oft-said, "Get thee an electric car!" What about the gas tax then?)

In the end, I'm just sick of the car culture and societal support for it. I'm chiefly sick of highways, and I'm sick of paying for them through general funds. I'm sick of the 80/20 match for highway projects and the poorer matching for transit projects. I'm sick existentially from the misinvestment we made some time ago in a technology that tends to destroy any concept of the fabric of society, and I'm sick of everybody citing that misinvestment as some great thing, as if the wholesale destruction of many cities wasn't an obvious result. I'm sick of how the car culture of this nation makes it very hard for me, a person who does not own a car (in great part because of the very real costs that few seem to consider) and chooses, often, not to rent and drive, to get places easily when not so long ago I would have been able to. And I'm sick of most people's, present company very much excepted, flippant answers to my very real concerns.

Why am I sick? Because I have this queasy feeling that we're going to be paying for it all somewhere down the road, and perhaps even in our lifetimes. We're going to pay through the nose, and everyone's going to wonder why, and everyone's going to say, "Who could have seen that coming?" I call bullshit in advance.

And I realize I'm grandstanding, but what else is JSID for? First a parking lot, and then they'll pave the Plantations! Bring back the Lehigh Valley, so we can shuffle off to Buffalo!

Scersk '97
In the end, I'm just sick of the car culture and societal support for it. I'm chiefly sick of highways, and I'm sick of paying for them through general funds. I'm sick of the 80/20 match for highway projects and the poorer matching for transit projects. I'm sick existentially from the misinvestment we made some time ago in a technology that tends to destroy any concept of the fabric of society, and I'm sick of everybody citing that misinvestment as some great thing, as if the wholesale destruction of many cities wasn't an obvious result. I'm sick of how the car culture of this nation makes it very hard for me, a person who does not own a car (in great part because of the very real costs that few seem to consider) and chooses, often, not to rent and drive, to get places easily when not so long ago I would have been able to. And I'm sick of most people's, present company very much excepted, flippant answers to my very real concerns.

As I said, I agree with a lot of what you're saying here. I moved from the suburbs back into the city specifically because I wanted to live in a higher-density area and not have to drive everywhere. I hate suburban culture, and part of that is the "drive everywhere" mentality. That said, I have a car that I use for getting myself and my large, heavy equipment bag to hockey games, and for medium- and long- distance travel (because it allows me flexibility to stop along the way for e.g. sightseeing). I value having both the ability to drive my car when I want to and ride my bike when I want to.

The problem with the inequitable funding of public transit and cars cannot be simplified to a sound bite. The biggest contributor is, of course, that it's the incumbent system and thus has lots of special interests bribing various public officials for its furtherance, whereas public transit doesn't even exist in most places in the US; but there are issues of density (at what level can public transport be provided at a reasonable ROI in cities like NY? Boston? Suburbs? Exurbs?), zoning (due mostly to artificially-restricted supply, housing in the cities is prohibitively expensive for many people, who feel it isn't worth 2x the cost to live in a place ½ the size), convenience and comfort (the aforementioned 35° rain; frequency of routes; dealing with anti-social people; putting up with poor management; etc.), all contributing to this inertia.

My point is simply that forcing people into a system that doesn't meet their needs as they define them, not as you define them, is immoral. That said, we don't have to help them make bad choices: given the world we live in, I'm all for ending government subsidization of roads and private vehicles. That means: bring the troops home, let oil become a free market and rise to its natural price, implement a gas tax or electronic tolls with revenues tied directly to road funding, etc. I'm curious how you propose we get there given the entrenched interests with substantial political power. Remember the public outcry when gas prices went to $4.50/gallon! Politicians who are perceived to make the trains run on time (so to speak ) are highly incentivized to do whatever it takes to keep the voters happy. Welcome to democracy.

RichH
ATT-Verizon

Unless you want your phone to actually get a signal, in which the choice is only Verizon.

Kyle Rose
My point is simply that forcing people into a system that doesn't meet their needs as they define them, not as you define them, is immoral. That said, we don't have to help them make bad choices: given the world we live in, I'm all for ending government subsidization of roads and private vehicles. That means: bring the troops home, let oil become a free market and rise to its natural price, implement a gas tax or electronic tolls with revenues tied directly to road funding, etc. I'm curious how you propose we get there given the entrenched interests with substantial political power. Remember the public outcry when gas prices went to $4.50/gallon! Politicians who are perceived to make the trains run on time (so to speak ) are highly incentivized to do whatever it takes to keep the voters happy. Welcome to democracy.

Well, I'm curious about how we get there too. Never let it be said that I'm a fan of any of the "entrenched interests" involved in this Shell game. I too dread the effect of them "bribing various public officials for the furtherance" of the "incumbent system." I would prefer that the "incumbent system," whether political or in infrastructure, doesn't fall apart catastrophically. But if we don't figure out some way to fund and fix our roads now, we're going to have further bridge failures etc.; and if the "incumbents" don't find their spines and stand up to those special interests, our government just might fall apart catastrophically as well.

To my mind, what you mention will come to pass. It has to. The troops can't be in Afghanistan (and, still, Iraq, though supposedly they're non-combatants) forever, we don't have the money for the foreign adventures and direct support that will be necessary to keep oil cheap in a peak oil world, and the highway trust fund is already bankrupt. All these things can come to pass abruptly through the inevitable, catastrophic, impersonal force of economic necessity, or they can have their various deleterious effects moderated through careful stewardship.

I'm not optimistic that anybody on the current political scene has the cojones to be a real leader and tell the hard truths necessary to straighten things out. So we risk the emergence of somebody who will "make the trains run on time" in the worst way and all the problems thereof. Indeed, bad economic times bring these solutions borne of expediency; it's up in the air for me whether democratic societies can properly realign economies that have gone as bad as ours, because it requires serious reappraisal, sacrifice, and work against the psychology of previous investment. Knowing how hard it is to accomplish those tasks in my own life, I have little confidence in the ability of society-at-large to do so through the imperfect instrument of our political system.

We shall see, but I hope that I can avoid putting my eggs in one basket. When I hit the job market, I hope to be able to look outside this troubled land of ours. But... in order to do that... I have things to finish.

On that note, thanks for the reasoned discussion, as always, but I think that I have to bid this thread adieu.

Scersk '97

Indeed, I kind of hate busses, but they're the only choice that Ithacans (in the broadest sense) will have in the reasonable future, so I'd like to see the area work hard on making the system work well for the greatest number of people. As it is, you could live in Ithaca without a car. Though it certainly wouldn't be easy, that level of service is pretty impressive for a small city. Yet it could always be better, especially with regard to suburb to city commutes.

Something that didn't exist until recently is Ithaca Carshare, which of course is the local version of ZipCar. Cornell pays the annual membership fee for all students and plan-enrolled faculty/staff. That certainly helps those who wish to live a carless existence.

[www.ithacacarshare.org]

Scersk '97

Kyle Rose

Scersk '97
After all, a good bus system is a great alternative to walking or cycling for those Ithacating days.

How many times have you stood at a bus stop in 35° rain, waiting 20 minutes for a late bus? There's a reason why the neighborhoods in Boston/Cambridge/Somerville served by the subway are 50% more expensive than those served only by the bus system.

Well... I have. Many times. And it sucks. The area in which I lived in Chicago was notorious for poor bus service despite high ridership levels. Thank god we lived a four-minute walk from the Red Line, which made getting downtown and northwards easy. But when we headed to any other area of the city, we suffered.

Indeed, I kind of hate busses, but they're the only choice that Ithacans (in the broadest sense) will have in the reasonable future, so I'd like to see the area work hard on making the system work well for the greatest number of people. As it is, you could live in Ithaca without a car. Though it certainly wouldn't be easy, that level of service is pretty impressive for a small city. Yet it could always be better, especially with regard to suburb to city commutes.

(Regional transportation, or the complete lack of coordination thereof, is another matter entirely. Each county has its own bus network, but the information even on routes and scheduling is hard to come by for those counties not Tompkins; in fact, they all link up, but you'd never know it.)

I guess we'll differ on the expense of parking lots. Just as you would be willing to bet that those parking garages have cost less than $60 mil, I'd be willing to bet that the users of those garages have born nowhere near the cost; indeed, I'd be willing to bet that a significant amount of general fund money went into building each lot, and that bugs me. I assert that one of the most persistent and pernicious myths in our society is that parking is paid for out of user fees, permits, and enforcement revenue. So, I'll get behind parking structures when I see private corporations buy the land for them at market price, build their own structures, maintain their own structures, and charge their own prices.

Of course, most people would level the same criticisms at public transport. I do see it—I do. But I submit that the level of government funding for driving far outweighs the level of funding for public transport, even though good transport could far more equitably serve a greater number of people for a lower cost. The books have been cooked in favor of private automobiles, and they've been cooked for quite some time now, so getting people to make a true accounting of the money being spent will always be difficult.

Since I think you (if not, my mistake) lean that direction, I'll say that the libertarian transportation argument has a lot to be said for it. I'm all for highway tolls; I'm all for user fees based on miles traveled. I want a gas tax that reflects all the costs involved in the use of internal combustion engine propelled vehicles so that we can rebuild and then maintain the infrastructure we already have. (Or, better, sell off the highways to groups that, because they make or lose money through tolling, will either maintain them or let them rot.) Indeed, I know libertarians are generally suspicious of taxing, but how do they feel about gas taxes or vehicle-mile taxing? How do libertarians expect to pay for, say, city, town, and rural streets, county highways, and other aspects of car infrastructure. (This is the area that bugs me about the oft-said, "Get thee an electric car!" What about the gas tax then?)

In the end, I'm just sick of the car culture and societal support for it. I'm chiefly sick of highways, and I'm sick of paying for them through general funds. I'm sick of the 80/20 match for highway projects and the poorer matching for transit projects. I'm sick existentially from the misinvestment we made some time ago in a technology that tends to destroy any concept of the fabric of society, and I'm sick of everybody citing that misinvestment as some great thing, as if the wholesale destruction of many cities wasn't an obvious result. I'm sick of how the car culture of this nation makes it very hard for me, a person who does not own a car (in great part because of the very real costs that few seem to consider) and chooses, often, not to rent and drive, to get places easily when not so long ago I would have been able to. And I'm sick of most people's, present company very much excepted, flippant answers to my very real concerns.

Why am I sick? Because I have this queasy feeling that we're going to be paying for it all somewhere down the road, and perhaps even in our lifetimes. We're going to pay through the nose, and everyone's going to wonder why, and everyone's going to say, "Who could have seen that coming?" I call bullshit in advance.

And I realize I'm grandstanding, but what else is JSID for? First a parking lot, and then they'll pave the Plantations! Bring back the Lehigh Valley, so we can shuffle off to Buffalo!

Forgive my trite response to Scersk's grandstanding, but:
This.

RichH
Something that didn't exist until recently is Ithaca Carshare, which of course is the local version of ZipCar. Cornell pays the annual membership fee for all students and plan-enrolled faculty/staff. That certainly helps those who wish to live a carless existence.

[www.ithacacarshare.org]

Zipcar and the like are great resources for those who only need a car occasionally, but they still suffer from the parking problem: try to find a (legal) parking spot anywhere on central campus except late at night when you need to run an errand. Hey, I'm all for using Skorton's Day Hall spot at 2 in the morning if you're only going to be there for 5 minutes, but I'd be afraid to find the CUPS crawling out of my trunk to have the thing towed.

Kyle Rose

RichH
Something that didn't exist until recently is Ithaca Carshare, which of course is the local version of ZipCar. Cornell pays the annual membership fee for all students and plan-enrolled faculty/staff. That certainly helps those who wish to live a carless existence.

[www.ithacacarshare.org]

Zipcar and the like are great resources for those who only need a car occasionally, but they still suffer from the parking problem: try to find a (legal) parking spot anywhere on central campus except late at night when you need to run an errand. Hey, I'm all for using Skorton's Day Hall spot at 2 in the morning if you're only going to be there for 5 minutes, but I'd be afraid to find the CUPS crawling out of my trunk to have the thing towed.

I have to agree with Kyle here. Right now, since there's a lack of parking, I have to walk all the way from the Ag Quad back to Stewart on West (which takes almost 15 minutes) and then drive to the golf course for my golf class (10 minutes). If the metered lots weren't so expensive, it would make a lot of sense for me to be able to park 3-4 hours a day and then take a short 5-minute ride to the course. Although this is a special circumstance, there are tons of things I could run into during a day that requires me going back to my room. Waiting for the bus or walking up the slope just takes too long and the same trip would take even longer as snow begins to accumulate. Our campus is not the most pedestrian-friendly place and owning a vehicle hinges on the border of desire and necessity. If I'm applying to Cornell again, this lack of parking would not a deal-breaker, but ease of vehicle access will be high on my "want" list.

Kyle Rose

My point is simply that forcing people into a system that doesn't meet their needs as they define them, not as you define them, is immoral. That said, we don't have to help them make bad choices: given the world we live in, I'm all for ending government subsidization of roads and private vehicles. That means: bring the troops home, let oil become a free market and rise to its natural price, implement a gas tax or electronic tolls with revenues tied directly to road funding, etc. I'm curious how you propose we get there given the entrenched interests with substantial political power. Remember the public outcry when gas prices went to $4.50/gallon! Politicians who are perceived to make the trains run on time (so to speak ) are highly incentivized to do whatever it takes to keep the voters happy. Welcome to democracy.

I also agree with a lot of what you are saying (I have a "bumper sticker" that says "Biking Against Oil Wars" ) but what I am not understanding is why you feel it is wrong for people to say that we need to dissuade private car transportation and not wrong to say that we need to spend, build and pave our way to to promote convenient private car transportation. Are you saying that our society is so far gone that we should just give up and go with the flow (of oil)? Are you saying that it is immoral for politicians or individuals to go against the tyranny of the majority in favor of longer term or broader goals? You have already noted the deficiency of the free market to function in this area, Why then cling to its ability to yield the best solutions? What's good for GM is not good for CU (although I am a part owner and I kind of like the idea of the Chevy Volt, a true hybrid).

Roy 82
I also agree with a lot of what you are saying (I have a "bumper sticker" that says "Biking Against Oil Wars" ) but what I am not understanding is why you feel it is wrong for people to say that we need to dissuade private car transportation and not wrong to say that we need to spend, build and pave our way to to promote convenient private car transportation.

The problem with the automobile-centric road system is primarily that subsidies for it crowd out alternatives: so stop subsidizing it, and see where demand stabilizes. People have legitimate reasons for driving, and artificially increasing its cost is IMO just as bad (morally) as artificially decreasing its cost through subsidies. We should just let the market figure out where to allocate resources without some central planning board interfering with this process, and the very first step along this path is to start charging drivers the full (and actual) cost of building and maintaining the roads and getting oil from the ground into their tanks.

The post about the new humanities building made me think of this old post. So, what do people think of Milstein Hall now that it's done?

I have not seen it in person. Frankly, I am afraid to.

Personally, I think Cornell would have done much better aesthetically if they had divided the campus into zones and kept the architecture in each zone somewhat consistent. Keep the arts quad area stone with slate gable/hip/victorian roofs. (Maybe even add a Llenrock building.) Ag quad=art deco and/or classical/neoclassical. Engineering quad=ugly. ILR=mini-Harvard. Etc. Right now IMO it's a mishmash of conflicting styles that just looks cluttered, and there aren't enough trees to maintain the former illusion of timelessness.

I guess I do care. But it's a bitter, resigned kind of caring, which is worse than not caring at all.

Kyle Rose
Personally, I think Cornell would have done much better aesthetically if they had divided the campus into zones and kept the architecture in each zone somewhat consistent. ... Engineering quad=ugly.

Well, they did stick with that, anyway.

Hmmmm....

Robb
Hmmmm....

Being in Architectural Digest, I'm guessing this list was devised by surveying the same retards who produce these ugly-ass buildings. When decisions about the campus are made by people who didn't go to Cornell, don't teach there, or are so far removed that they have forgotten what it's like to live there, inviting some self-important douchebag to design a striking building that is nonetheless entirely out of place must seem like a good idea, because it happens on campuses everywhere. I wonder what, if any, cohesive campus-wide philosophy is driving the trustees.

Kyle Rose
I wonder what, if any, cohesive campus-wide philosophy is driving the trustees.

You're giving the trustees way too much credit -- they're just buying what they've been trained to. The architecture game works on the same principle as the art, music and fashion games: anything human beings find attractive is "pedestrian." Anything human beings find uncomfortable or annoying is "profound."

I'm sure Thorstein Veblen wrote entire chapters about ginning up prices via clique-reinforced fakery.

"Get off my quad."

Someday people will recovery and we'll pull down every non-hockey building erected since 1929.

Trotsky
anything human beings find attractive is "pedestrian." Anything human beings find uncomfortable or annoying is "profound."

I cannot be the only one who finds sitting on the grass under a large tree with tall stone buildings acting as a kind of close visual horizon incredibly comforting.

I never hung out on the Engineering quad, despite having most of my classes there. The Arts Quad OTOH still feels like home. Well, that and Lynah.

Central Ave., 1933:

Boardman Hall (demolished in 1959 for Olin Library).

What happened to those elm trees, anyway?

Josh '99
What happened to those elm trees, anyway?

[en.wikipedia.org]

Kyle Rose

Robb
Hmmmm....

Being in Architectural Digest, I'm guessing this list was devised by surveying the same retards who produce these ugly-ass buildings. When decisions about the campus are made by people who didn't go to Cornell, don't teach there, or are so far removed that they have forgotten what it's like to live there, inviting some self-important douchebag to design a striking building that is nonetheless entirely out of place must seem like a good idea, because it happens on campuses everywhere. I wonder what, if any, cohesive campus-wide philosophy is driving the trustees.

I got a brief look at Milstein hall heading south from the Thurston bridge. It looks pretty cool, and at least from that angle didn't look out of place - or at least not any more than the old section of the architecture building did when I was an undergrad. I didn't get the chance to take a closer look, or even check it out from the Arts Quad side, but I don't think the impact on the Arts Quad would be all that stark. For one thing, most of the big changes appear to be on the North and East sides of Sibley. For another, Sibley is so far out to the North end of the quad that even replacing it with, say, Upson Hall wouldn't be as disastrous to the overall feel of the place as a minor change to Goldwin Smith. Not that I'm advocating for making Sibley eng-quad ugly, but you get the point.

A colleague of mine took a closer look and tells me it looks like it makes good use of space and provides comfortable, usable work and lounge areas. He had limited time, so I don't know how it feels to people who actually use the building regularly, but it doesn't seem like the typical architectural monstrosity where some fancy pants designer creates a striking modern (read: ugly and angular) building with absolutely useless interior spaces. I've seen buildings where the design conversation must have sounded like this:

Designer: ... and the most striking feature of the design is this row of triangular offices with tall narrow windows!
University President: These plans don't leave enough room for desks in the offices. Won't people want desks?
Designer: But the space will be so funky! And it'll look *amazing* from outside. You can use them for ad hoc meeting areas if they don't work as offices, and then you can have a centralized open floor plan for the desks out here. It'll promote collaboration!
University President: Isn't that the hallway?
Designer: no, no, it's the open foyer entry. Perfect place for people to do day to day work.
...

Somehow, the plans get approved, and 20 years later there's a building on campus that's old, ugly, dated, and has no room for desks in any of the offices.

Trotsky
Boardman Hall (demolished in 1959 for Olin Library).

I never had any objection to Olin Library until now. What a shame.

Kyle Rose

Josh '99
What happened to those elm trees, anyway?

[en.wikipedia.org]

Cornell IIRC planted gingko trees in the 1970s along East Avenue to replace the dutch elms. Forty years later there should be a leafy canopy. Does anyone else recall a massive planting program ... and the fate of trees? Gingkos are supposed to be very long-lived, more than a century.

Trotsky
The architecture game works on the same principle as the art, music and fashion games: anything human beings find attractive is "pedestrian." Anything human beings find uncomfortable or annoying is "profound."

I find your post to be quite, uh, "profound".

Dutch Elm disease indeed was the downfall of a lot of the trees that were so prominent in historic images of the campus

The American Elm in particular is susceptible, I assume there is still that big Scotch Elm in the park between Day hall and the Business school. The branch structure of the american elm was a major reason why they were frequently planted along walks and roads... they have a vase shape that creates a cathedral type vault when planted in pairs

I know there have been some other species used to try to get the same effect, most notably the Zelkova serrata
These were planted from Goldwin Smith to Rand Hall along the walk... but there was an ice storm in the mid-90s that damaged many of them
(compared to the elms they rarely reached the same height and are known to split due to wind/snow/ice more commonly)

Generally campuses are less of a monoculture in terms of greenspace these days, the challenging part is that it can take 25 or more years for even a fairly large transplant to reach a 'mature' size. To replace established full grown trees like the aaks on Lib Slope/Arts Quad or the sycamores along the Baker complex is an undertaking viewed in decades, not years

This is one reason that there is so much emphasis on the Asian Long Horn beetle, it has the potential to devastate large areas and isnt particularly species specific like previous diseases and pests.

bringing you more information than you cared to know
Kevin '95 (Landscape Arch)

All I know is that Zelkova Serrata sounds like a first round draft pick with a mean wrist shot.

Kyle Rose
Right now IMO it's a mishmash of conflicting styles that just looks cluttered

Have you seen Penn State's campus? Every building has the exact same facade. It's all rather Orwellian and boring. I'm happy with the mishmash as long as the buildings are interesting*.

Keeping distinct zoning only works until you need to build that next building and there's no space for it.


*Uris Hall is not interesting

Consistent architecture at a single institution is Orwellian? Isn't that a bit much. Sure, conformity can be boring but it can also lead to a very nice aesthetic. I haven't been to Penn State, but I have seen other campuses with conforming architecture that were quite nice and beautiful (Miami of Ohio for instance).

Which is not to say that having a wide variety of architecture is necessarily bad either. Usually it's quality of the individual buildings that is the driver (e.g. Uris or Upson).

CowbellGuy

Kyle Rose
Right now IMO it's a mishmash of conflicting styles that just looks cluttered

Have you seen Penn State's campus? Every building has the exact same facade. It's all rather Orwellian and boring. I'm happy with the mishmash as long as the buildings are interesting*.

Keeping distinct zoning only works until you need to build that next building and there's no space for it.


*Uris Hall is not interesting

I personally like PSU's campus, now as gorgeous as it is, the one that bothers me is UVA. They even have columns surrounding their lacrosse field (supporting nothing by the way)

The campus itself is very nice, but there's something disturbing about nearly every building looking like

I'm not saying every building should look the same, but there should be some consistency. Skin-and-steel high school style buildings with flat roofs should not be placed next to...say, stone buildings with hip roofs. Perhaps a worse problem is the notion that architecture should be unique for the sake of being unique: even without consistency, buildings of different styles can coexist nicely if they don't clash.

For example, Day Hall doesn't look like any of the buildings on the arts quad, but it isn't ugly and doesn't seem out of place or, worse, scream "I'm ugly! Notice me!" This is not true of Uris or Milstein or this proposed Lincoln addition or Roberts/Kennedy.

KeithK
Consistent architecture at a single institution is Orwellian? Isn't that a bit much.

I thought that too. Every building at Princeton looks the same, but it works nicely there.

I don't think there's a problem with every building looking similar a la Princeton, but when every building looks almost identical with exactly the same facade to the point where when you're standing in the middle of a group of them you have no idea where on campus you are, I see that as a bit of a problem.

CowbellGuy
The campus itself is very nice, but there's something disturbing about nearly every building looking like

1848775749_75a4cd637c.jpg

So basically the whole campus looks like MVR.

Trotsky
So basically the whole campus looks like MVR.

With those aircon vent "details" and the shitty apologetic greenery, more like a roadside Homewood Suites.

Scersk '97

Trotsky
So basically the whole campus looks like MVR.

With those aircon vent "details" and the shitty apologetic greenery, more like a roadside Homewood Suites.

To be fair, East Halls are a bunch square red brick high rises that look different from the South Halls being shown there, but detract the campus IMO.

css228

Scersk '97

Trotsky
So basically the whole campus looks like MVR.

With those aircon vent "details" and the shitty apologetic greenery, more like a roadside Homewood Suites.

To be fair, East Halls are a bunch square red brick high rises that look different from the South Halls being shown there, but detract the campus IMO.

Did you use Google to translate this into some other language and then back again?

Homewood Suites or Penn State building, you make the call.

Scersk '97
Homewood Suites or Penn State building, you make the call.

homewood-suites-by-h-0433466_11_b.jpg

Given the Tennessee flag flying out front, I'm going with "Homewood Suites."

Scersk '97
Homewood Suites or Penn State building, you make the call.

homewood-suites-by-h-0433466_11_b.jpg

I LOL'ed.

Scersk '97
With those aircon vent "details" and the shitty apologetic greenery, more like a roadside Homewood Suites.

1. Great observation.
2. Plant ivy and wait 20 years.
3. Gad, another state school prepending "The" to its name rather than developing Nobel laureates. (Or: "I'll take Urban Meyer for four ... million." Why doesn't the NCAA ban that in post-season play?

billhoward
Gad, another state school prepending "The" to its name rather than developing Nobel laureates. (Or: "I'll take Urban Meyer for four ... million." Why doesn't the NCAA ban that in post-season play?

"Penn State" has always been short for "The Pennsylvania State University." Or at least that's what it says on my Dad's diploma (1952). It's certainly not anything new. But other than on offical paperwork and an occasional sign, nobody calls it anything but Penn State.

Jeff Hopkins '82

billhoward
Gad, another state school prepending "The" to its name rather than developing Nobel laureates. (Or: "I'll take Urban Meyer for four ... million." Why doesn't the NCAA ban that in post-season play?

"Penn State" has always been short for "The Pennsylvania State University." Or at least that's what it says on my Dad's diploma (1952). It's certainly not anything new. But other than on offical paperwork and an occasional sign, nobody calls it anything but Penn State.

As opposed to the folks in Columbus who say THE with such authority that you begin to suspect that they are trying to distract you from the "Ohio State University" part.

ugarte

Jeff Hopkins '82

billhoward
Gad, another state school prepending "The" to its name rather than developing Nobel laureates. (Or: "I'll take Urban Meyer for four ... million." Why doesn't the NCAA ban that in post-season play?

"Penn State" has always been short for "The Pennsylvania State University." Or at least that's what it says on my Dad's diploma (1952). It's certainly not anything new. But other than on offical paperwork and an occasional sign, nobody calls it anything but Penn State.

As opposed to the folks in Columbus who say THE with such authority that you begin to suspect that they are trying to distract you from the "Ohio State University" part.

Well at least it isn't as bad as "The U"!!!!

Kyle Rose

css228

Scersk '97

Trotsky
So basically the whole campus looks like MVR.

With those aircon vent "details" and the shitty apologetic greenery, more like a roadside Homewood Suites.

To be fair, East Halls are a bunch square red brick high rises that look different from the South Halls being shown there, but detract the campus IMO.

Did you use Google to translate this into some other language and then back again?

An ex went to PSU, so I've spent a bit of time there. Momentarily forgot that no one would have any clue what I was talking about. All I'm saying this there's variety on the campus in terms of building style, but that variety doesn't necessarily make the campus nicer.

[online.wsj.com] WSJ article 12/23/2011 (may be behind paywall) praises Milstein Hall. Since the mass media likes a building, will this make architects like it less?

Julie V Iovine, "Why Hard Times Can Make Great Buildings"
The resulting structure [Milstein Hall] is startlingly multifaceted: From some angles it is a politely elevated rectangular box inserted gingerly between the collegiate beaux arts Sibley Hall from 1894 and the industrial-brick Rand Hall. Structurally, it is far more ambitious, an extended cantilever supported by an array of progressively off-kilter columns telegraphing a message about load stresses. Just outside the entrance, the floor plate buckles up into a dome dotted on its swollen flank with bubble seats on one side and a stair to the upper floor on the other. A bridge crosses under the dome to allow viewing of student life and class activity going on below. It's the hospitable version of Fritz Lang's "Metropolis." Milstein Hall shows off one extreme of a current concept popular with academic and research institutions and geared to encourage what the OMA architects call "improvisational interaction." It could also be called design for casual socializing.

I was on campus this weekend and got a look at Milstein Hall. I'm not a fan. The friend I was visiting detests it. She calls it "the monstrosity."

Why are the sides of it underneath the cantilever glass if they're going to block the sun with the cantilever itself? It's dark (and damp) under that cantilever, too.

The stadium seats inside the atrium make no sense to me. Is that a lecture hall? If so, they'll be lecturing in a fishbowl. That'll never work. Or is it just a place to hang out? If so, is it meant to be like a set of steps for people to sit on?

They should have knocked down the shed across the street and opened up the view into the gorge. That building just looks old and decrepit.

Even the faux tin roof looks half-assed. I think it's a neat idea, but they only did it half way.

And why did they have to paint the dome white? It's just glaring.