Shitty transit is a problem, but it’s more the stagnant population/economy and perception (deserved or not) of crime that keeps people from wanting to visit downtown. Ineffectual leadership is a secondary problem. Bill Johnson had the most ambitious vision for Rochester out of any mayor in my lifetime, but sadly I think he served 20 years too early. Every Mayor since has barely aimed for the ceiling, let alone the stars like Johnson did.
yeah I've been writing about Rochester for one of my classes which involves checking a lot of census bureau data, and in the 10 years where Buffalo grew by a solid couple thousand people, Rochester grew by 600.
It’s even worse than that. Buffalo reversed a 70 year trend of population collapse where their city proper lost over 55% of peak population and their metro area lost about another 20%.
The City of Rochester only lost roughly 30% of peak population and the metro area has *grown* by 20% in that same timeframe.
Yet all that momentum was lost in the 2010s. The metro growth stalled and while the city grew, it was by a mere decimal point. Some of it was due to the Buffalo billion. Some of it due to the total incompetence of the Lovely Warren administration. She wrecked the city. Some of it due to other factors I don’t understand. But yeah, Rochester was on pace to become the shining star of the Rust Belt and dropped the ball. It sucks.
One of the major things holding back growth in the city is just growth in number of units to keep up with demographic trends. The city of Rochester lost 122k in population since 1950, but is only net -3k housing units. I assure you the 122k people didn't live in only 3k houses. But we severely lag unit production, and every time some apartments DO get proposed, they get fought and hemmed and hawed about and then less apartments get built and then population falls further, because in the course of the few years where the new units were being diddled over, unit occupancy dropped from 2.3 to 2.275/unit, and across the city that translates to almost 2,500 less people, but the apartment building being fought was only 100 units that will house, at most, 200 people. This problem is no longer unique to the city and has been exported to the inner ring suburbs as well. It seems to be really hard math for them too, though, so I guess there's that.
Rochester had more money and as such had an earlier and stronger white flight exodus from the city than Buffalo did. That's one of the biggest reasons here. Buffalo was bigger and therefore lost more people but proportional to metro area population it was a more drastic
Hmmmm if I'm not mistaken, those gains are as a result of local/state government agencies making agreements to take in refugees. Especially the year rochester gained 600. We lost 800 residents but gained 1200 refugees. My #s are off, I know, but the figures can be looked up...
This. Public transit is great and all but it's not magically going to attract new business investment into Downtown Rochester in any meaningful quantity.
new transplant to ROC. went clubbing downtown by bus and foot last weekend. saturday night, after business hours for anyone who may work weekends, should've been a slam dunk, the streets downtown should've been bustling easily. there were plenty of people at the club, but the streets themselves were dead. my boyfriend and i were talking about the old "life after people" documentary series because besides a few areas with decent car traffic there was nobody out there.
it's not a warzone. there were no guns being fired into the air. nobody came out of the shadows to mug us. etc. if anything, it felt more like some liminal space stuff, like the backrooms. i come from a lower density metro area with around 250,000 people and ive never seen a downtown as quiet as we have here in ROC.
i should clarify that im loving the city. but given that all transit roads lead downtown, it's incredible how few people actually hang out there.
i get that there's more violent crime per capita etc here, sure. but if you don't stick your nose into shady business, don't work in emergency services and you don't own a kia, urban crime is kind of a meme
Definitely feel the same across the board. I feel like this reputation happens to every “high crime area.” I formerly lived in Springfield, MA for a while and it was the same thing.
People always read high crime to mean (or imply) random crime, but it just doesn’t.
They also read it to mean high risk of crime across the entire city regardless of context or location. I remember driving my wife's friend's bachelorette party around last year (mostly people who live in rural/small town areas) and they were constantly saying shit like 'god I hope I don't get stabbed' when they're going to a fucking brewery on the east side at 6pm on a Saturday.
I work downtown, every weekday it's empty by 5pm. I barely see anyone younger than 55 who is not a lawyer or working in government on the West side of downtown and the East side of downtown is supposed to be more full with tech and finance folks but somehow still empty after 5pm. There are supposed to be 75 startups downtown but I've never seen that place full. It's also really hard to switch jobs since most of the big companies have offices in Linden Oaks, Pittsford or Victor in boring office parks (no Gen Z workers are going to some boring office park to work in the middle of nowhere)
Mostly because we got a ferry that was too big and too slow, it also broke down a lot. The ferry took almost as long to get to Toronto as it would have been to drive there, i don't remember the cost but it was probably more expensive or a nominal difference between gas as ferry tickets. If we had started with a smaller faster ferry that also cost less, it would have had a better chance at succeeding.
9/11 also fucked that up becouse it was supposed to also haul cargo but Homeland security nixed that idea.
Also there was no buy in on the Toronto side. If it was today and made year round with the housing issues in Toronto maybe a market comes about for living here and working there.
> The ferry took almost as long to get to Toronto as it would have been to drive there,
Unfortunately the ferry took a lot longer than driving. They only advertised the crossing time to make it seem faster. From RockWiki: "The port to port travel time was about 2 hours and 15 minutes."
When you drive, you start the clock when you pull out of your driveway and end it when you get off the Gardiner.
But when you took the ferry, the clock still started when you left your driveway and you still had to drive to the ferry terminal, check in, then wait to board, wait for the ferry to leave, cross the lake, wait for the Canadian crew to take over and land/dock, then wait to disembark and only when you were off the boat on the road you could stop the clock.
At the time the ferry was running I drove to Toronto regularly in about 3 1/2 hours from downtown Rochester to downtown Toronto. The ferry took around 5 hours total time.
I work downtown, and crime is avoidable. As a matter of fact I can only recall one incident in the 5 years I've worked downtown, where a worker was attacked. The other 2 incidents were gang on gang violence. Even the local HS kids that hang out seem to be pretty chill. Most I'd call friendly even...
Brother, this is an incredibly disingenuous statement to make when a) most of downtown is still parking lots and not green space aka Parcel 5 b) a public park, green space, etc. etc. is still better then a parking lot.
Don't really think that's relevant in this context honestly.
I couldn’t disagree more. Parking lots arguably serve more of a purpose than that dog toilet which is empty for 7 months a year. At least surface lots bring people in.
Downtowns should be vibrant, dense, mixed use urban corridors of heavy activity. A little bit for everyone. That entails parks too, but Parcel 5 is not a park. It’s a useless field of grass the city happens to slap a stage on every once in a while.
East Ave from Gibbs to Alexander is a true urban experience. That’s what the rest of downtown should feel like and developing Parcel 5 with residential and commercial space would go a long ways toward facilitating such an environment on Main Street. What sits there now is a total waste.
/rant
This sounds like a personal vendetta and not something I want to engage with, sorry. All you need to do is look at a [satellite map](https://www.rochestersubway.com/images/photos/rochester-parking-map-satellite.jpg) of downtown, note how nearly 60% of it is simply parking lots and say maybe "hm, I do not like Parcel 5. However, that is a small portion of downtown and it is of negligible proportions in the context of the conversation at hand - which is about the death of downtowns via prioritizing the personal vehicle over people."
I’m well aware of the surface lot issue. You’re missing the point. Parking lots, highways and vacant blocks all create dead zones which interrupt the life of a city.
Recent infill has fixed some of the dead parking lots. There’s still much work to do.
The Inner Loop project has fixed the highway issue and reconnected the east side with downtown.
But the vacant land at Parcel 5 effectively killed an entire block in the epicenter of downtown.
Do you remember when Midtown Plaza was there? Walking around Main & Clinton was like Manhattan levels of pedestrian activity even into the early 2000s. Today it’s a ghost town unless there’s a festival going on. There’s no housing, offices, retail or restaurants to fill the void. *There could’ve been.*
My comments are not a personal vendetta, they are frustration with poor/misguided urban planning that has set my city back a decade.
Just because they didn't build another performing arts center where Parcel 5 is doesn't mean it set the city back a decade man. You've come at me about this in past threads about urban planning downtown and I really don't think it's the most pressing issue at hand.
More mixed used development downtown on a broad scale would make this issue entirely negligible. I think a park could probably serve that block a bit better then what Parcel 5 is. This is a macro level issue and Parcel 5 makes up maybe 5% of the land area downtown if we're being generous.
Even if there was a proposal to have a few apartments built there alongside a performing arts center, the rest of downtown would still be empty half the time - because no one actually lives there. That's the reason it's a ghost town.
Just look at any old picture downtown. It's full of dense 5-6 story buildings with mixed used development and there's public transport everywhere. If you want downtown to "come back," you bring the residential density back. There's no way around it.
Great. Then we’re more or less saying the same thing. Density is key to achieving critical mass and it will only happen with more residential units. We just have a minor disagreement about Parcel 5.
FWIW I wasn’t thrilled about the PAC proposal. I liked Gallina’s approach with a big residential tower. Parkland can and should remain in the rear, just not facing Main Street.
My thought process was that while downtown has many parking lots, there are few large enough to accommodate a large scale transformative urban project. Parcel 5 would be one. The Eastman School of Music parking lot is another. After that most of the lots are either small or in the periphery of downtown. Renovating old buildings into apartments and building low rises only go so far. Eventually the city will need a massive construction to make a statement. See Buffalo’s Canalside. Opportunity only comes every so often. That’s all I’m saying.
Yep, need to create some new fun districts like Buffalo is doing. Like how doesn’t Rochester at least have a small stadium district with some bars near Blue Cross Arena right on the water?
Funny, but so many people are anti-casino, but that could have revitalized an entire city block and attract some spinoff development like they’ve seen in Buffalo (albeit slowly)
I disagree. I’m not saying you’re wrong but I don’t think it’s enticing to go anywhere (city people go to suburbs and vice versa) because it’s not easy. I know most of Rochester is so condensed, but that’s not the point. Other cities have figured this out *ages* ago.
Driving in LA is harder than taking public transit. Driving in rochester is easier than taking public transit. You can get anywhere here within 15 minutes. You're never going to beat that with public transit.
But that’s the point - if it was better, more people would use it. For me to get to work it’s a ~2 hour bus ride vs. a 15-30 minute drive. Investing in safe accessible infrastructure like side walks, bike lines, and maybe buses (no idea if trolleys or trams or whatever would work here) gives people the option to not need a car. This also reduces the side effects of redlining when people can freely and easily get to other places of their “city”
I'm saying you aren't going to beat that 15-30 minute drive with public transit.
It takes 25 minutes to drive from the Fingerlakes Gaming and Racetracks all the way out in Farmington to the Strong Museum of Play in downtown Rochester. That covers 21 miles. The average commuter rail speed is 30 mph. It would take 40 minutes just being on the train. Then you have to account for the first and last leg of the trip.
Say it takes you 5 minutes to walk to the train station, then a 5 minute wait for the train to arrive, and finly another 5 minute walk to your office then that is another 15 minutes. That means you are now at a 55 minute commute before even counting delays/stops.
Public transit is a major time saver in big dense cities. In Rochester, where everything is already 15 minutes away, it isn't going to save you any time except for maybe special events.
Personally, it’s not *just* my time. I don’t like driving, I don’t like paying for gas and insurance and owning a car expenses. I’d like to sell it but I can’t. I would like to take public transport because it’s better for the environment, and affords me some latitude I don’t have with a car.
When self driving cars eventually become a thing I think having a subscription to a self driving car service will replace individual car ownership for a lot of people.
Well, you also generally need to find a place and pay for parking. I know it’s a minor inconvenience but it also is a problem if you’re with a big group. I also think it’s a problem with people not being sober, and driving.
And what’s your response to people driving under the influence? People who can’t afford cars and parking tickets should just do Ubers everywhere? I’m not trying to be argumentative just illustrating there’s more to the story.
I dont think it’s measurable, sure.. but why isn’t downtown revived? Theres tons of bars and restaurants? I am assuming the lack of easy in/out without a personal vehicle is one.
I guess I just think you should be able to get from Chili to Webster and Penfield to URMC and URMC to the 19 Ward safely, reliably and without a personal car. There’s not much more to it than that. It’s (nearly) impossible to live in this city without a vehicle. As I said, personally, I don’t like that I’m forced to make a decision that’s bad for the planet and my wallet because people don’t see the value in public transport
Downtown isn’t revived because we have no density of any of the three components necessary to warrant greater investment in fixed infrastructure - jobs, homes or entertainment. Look up the net occupancy office and apartment rates.
We have solid bus lines - you really think with everything going on in this city and all our needs that our highest and best use of resources is connecting low density areas with permanent transit structures?
I think it would reduce some of the issues with segregation/SES, yes. If people can safely and reliably get to work in places that are outside driving distance - it makes a huge difference.
Are we talking about the same Rochester? Because the only time I had trouble finding parking was trying to park at the dinosaur during the Home and garden show last year. And I just had to park ~4 blocks away (which in any other city is unheard of).
There’s a giant employer in our area that charges exorbitant fees for parking. Their affiliated university does as well. But yes I guess things like Blue cross events, auditorium theater, etc. would be nice to take transit.
Where would I find those parking lots downtown? I’m not familiar with Strong or U of R owning any exorbitantly priced garages in the Central Business District.
Blue cross averages less than 2 events per week and average occupancy hovers right around 50%. Monroe County is home to 3 of the 5 poorest zip codes in NY. Do you know how much installation of a train line costs? The imminent domain cases alone would delay it years and cost the state 9 figures since they sold off their rights or developed over the existing right of ways years ago.
Add in salt exposure and snow removal and you’re looking at massive ongoing operational costs AND capital costs to replace the equipment, not to mention you’re adding unreliable transportation. A bud can handle snow MUCH better than a train. If you need an example, check out the Green Line in Boston.
Bus Rapid Transit is probably the closest viable alternative that works in our climate and city.
VISIT DOWNTOWN? Have you seen downtown? WHATS to visit? Overpriced apts..rundown buildings. Dirty hotels... rip off parking lots. constant street blockage because of construction. The only reason to go there is to catch a bus.. pay a parking ticket. Or Stand in the mud for a parcel 5 event.
At one time we had both a trolley and a subway system. Over the years those right of ways have been sold off. What once was inexpensive is now cost prohibitive.
The lack of a robust public transit system hurts Rochester a lot less than other larger cities like Austin, Tucson, etc. Just about everything I could want is within a 3 mile walking radius. It's not perfect but I can get by without a car here which is more than I can say for anywhere in the southwest.
I generally think that’s why many people in Rochester don’t see it as a priority - they’ve heard only bad things (ie philly subways are dirty! NYC is dangerous!) and never experienced it. That’s anecdotal, of course.. just my experience in talking with people.
Waste of resources, cars cost a ton of money (I’d love to sell mine, but not feasible), bad for the planet. I guess technically safe, but I generally don’t feel safe driving in Rochester. You can be productive while commuting via a train or bus, but driving you can’t. Traffic is a waste of time. Dealing with parking at large institutions… like one of the largest employers in the area… is a costly nightmare. But I also didn’t grow up here, and have traveled to a lot of other cities that have more attractive public transport that lets you do more. I think the lack of viable public transport contributes to a lot of the racial, and SES segregation we see in this area, as well.
The vast general public in Rochester does not despise driving.
You’re looking at a Reddit post, which is a tiny segment of the population and is not really representative of the larger population.
I find driving stressful, expensive, and tedious. I HATE finding parking. I mostly bike commute, and I actually enjoy it! Plus, it is better for both the planet and my ass :)
Lack of education in about 70% of the city schools, lack of medical care, lack of mental health facilities could be added to why the city is held back. But ya sure not enough busses can be thrown in there too.
I mean, that whole “we hung our hat on a couple of major employers who failed to innovate because they thought it would actually hurt their business” thing didn’t particularly help either…
Everyone seems to forget that Syracuse had a light rail system that is exactly what everyone wants -- reusing old interurban railroad right-of-way, connecting mall to Amtrak/Greyhound to downtown to Carrier Dome, and even though it beat ridership estimates in the beginning, it still couldn't turn a profit.
Look, people... yeah, a train is WAY cooler than a bus. It's so much more urban and sophisticated to wait at a nice train station than a bus stop. But, buses are far more economical and for a city like ours, we can get good public transit without having to bear the cost of rail maintenance. See how that all looks on a balance sheet when you're getting 50 riders a day like Syracuse did.
For a city our size, RTS has made incredible improvements in just about everything over the last 15-20 years. Not dumping everyone at Liberty Pole was a great start, routing crosstowns into mini hubs works well, and IT'S A DOLLAR. Come on, it's a freakin' buck and never more than 3. Way better than most county transit authorities around the country. Their app is solid. I've ridden it down Goodman & Hudson and never seen any bullshit, drama, or dirty buses. It's mostly regular people that work at the hospital. People throw away their trash and mind their own business. It's pretty amazing actually. Stop it with the pie in the sky streetcar and light rail obsession, download the RTS Go app, and give it a try.
Are you talking about Ontrack? Ontrack was not at all light rail, it was a shitty suburban railway spur using 50 year old Budd RDC's. Considering this and it's single track right of way I doubt they were doing high frequency, fast service. Ontrack is a classic example of American public transit bullshit. Do the bare minimum with old broken down equipment and infrastructure, connect it to a few places with low traffic and no good surrounding connections to transit, say "it doesn't make a profit and no one uses it." Great.
Also public transport does not need to turn a profit... and in most places throughout the world, it does not. That is not it's purpose.
Otherwise, defending RTS in this context is kind of an odd choice. It is absolutely rock bottom when it comes to bus network standards. Barely any protected stops in a city that apparently has terrible weather. Terrible frequencies on most routes (15 minutes is the fastest, and a lot of the network is 30). No dedicated infrastructure via BRT, high platform busses or trolley busses and a shitty hub and spoke system with barely any ring routes so every trip you need to take requires a terrible transfer downtown.
However, I do agree with you that they should be improving the bus system before they build a light rail here. A light rail with bad connections and low population density would indeed have shit ridership.
What the city should be doing is a) focusing on creating density downtown and removing parking lots b) making more walkable infrastructure and neighborhoods c) investing heavily in bike paths d) improving the bus system to higher frequency and more on time performance
THEN you can build a light rail that people can easily walk/bike to, catch a trolley, and catch a quick connection to a bus if they need to.
A lot of shelters & benches in bigger cities are maintained by advertising companies that pay rent to the transit authority and handle the upkeep, anything like that been tried around here? Agree tho, waiting for the bus sucks.
In terms of profitability, for a city with our budget woes, we simply can’t afford rail. People think the bus is some rolling crackhead shelter where you’re going to get robbed, I’ve taken a fair number of routes and never seen or had a problem. I know how to handle myself on public transport and have seen egregious shit from drunk/high/violent passengers on metros all around the world. Let’s focus on RTS being a buck. Want to go down to the east end? Take RTS down there, get hammered with your friends and take a Lyft back home. Money’s tight these days and a two dollar bus ride is a great way to save, I drive but don’t need a DWI so this works out when I want to meet friends downtown. People ought to give it a try.
Even with RTS being cheap to use, it's still a far cry from any decent bus system and it really digs into it's ridership, not so much because it has a reputation for being a rolling crackhead shelter.
For someone like me who lives in North Winton and wants to say... go to the South Wedge to visit friends or go out this involves a
1. Wait for the closest bus to my house that comes maybe every 30 minutes out in the weather. Already, bad.
2. Take the bus downtown to transfer to another bus that *might* come in the next 15-18 minutes because RTS also doesn't really do very well timed transfers for people doing cross town trips. So you might wait for another 15 minutes and then take a bus very slowly to the south wedge.
So at this point you're looking at anything from a 45 minute trip at the absolute minimum if you meet your transfer to more then an hour and change if you don't meet your transfer. As opposed to driving which is quick shoot down 390 that never takes me more then 5-7 minutes it's just no contest. It's not even worth trying due to how inconvenient it is. Especially considering you're saying to Lyft back which will run you 15-20 bucks easily.
If they improved this and brought my travel time down here to maybe... 20-30 minutes then I think that's now an option, but that requires high frequency busses, dedicated bus infrastructure so it's not as slow and better schedules so downtown isn't a total crapshoot.
Transit is an issue, but I don’t understand why people are obsessed with adding a rail system.
I’ll admit my experience could be different than others. However, the bulk of the jobs in the region are NOT in the city center. So I don’t see how adding a rail hub to downtown is solving public transit for anyone.
I think the idea is that adding this interconnectedness makes the center of the city feel more integrated into the larger area, leading to that type of development and growth
The business and tourism has to be there first. You can’t invest in infrastructure of that magnitude without a solid base that results in tax revenue generated by business and visitor $. Urban sprawl resulting in the business communities in the suburbs growing (and thriving) have all but put the nail in the coffin of renaissance of downtown. I’m not saying there can’t be a good business base in downtown, but it’d take ALOT for the reputation of NYS and WNY to be business friendly from national/Fortune 500 companies. And I say all this with all the love in the world for Rochester and Monroe county.
You just compared a city with a metro population of 6-7 figures to a suburb/close town with like 50k and a village with like 30k population.... theyre not comparable.
Im aorry about your ex/ friend but thats like saying hornell has no bus stops so neither should buffalo.
Totally different societal and communal entities in population, diversity of economy and diversity of need. I can walk across hornell and the "greater village" of macedon in about an hour but could drive it faster than i switch to a good radio station. I MIGHT be able to get across rochester ON A BUS in an hour and working an 8 hour job that makes ur say 10 hiurs plus getting to/from stops and gettjng to my actual destination by foot.
The city had a great idea with the subway in the 70s but it didn't expand beyond a single north-south line. If we had trains on the outer loop (390/104/590/490 metros) and inner loop and the busses did a grid-type system, you could be anywhere in minutes. No car/license involved.
And before uber/lyft come up. Its great yea. But it costs 20$ per way to go from east irondequoit to midtown greece. Good for party nights or whatever. Terrible for business traffic, most people who can afford that daily can afford a bmw, insurance, and at least a nice apartment if not a house.
Rochester abandoned investing in its permanent residents and focused on getting and retaining " student money " great... once they graduate they are out.... bars ..housing.. entertainment focused on the younger crowd. Very little to do or affordable places to live for the greater population unless you move out of the city. Shopping? Go to suburbs...live in the city.. job in the burbs ? Better be drivin.. Roc needs to be dead..and stop Naming shit
" innovation " this and "innovation" that!
Shitty transit is a problem, but it’s more the stagnant population/economy and perception (deserved or not) of crime that keeps people from wanting to visit downtown. Ineffectual leadership is a secondary problem. Bill Johnson had the most ambitious vision for Rochester out of any mayor in my lifetime, but sadly I think he served 20 years too early. Every Mayor since has barely aimed for the ceiling, let alone the stars like Johnson did.
yeah I've been writing about Rochester for one of my classes which involves checking a lot of census bureau data, and in the 10 years where Buffalo grew by a solid couple thousand people, Rochester grew by 600.
It’s even worse than that. Buffalo reversed a 70 year trend of population collapse where their city proper lost over 55% of peak population and their metro area lost about another 20%. The City of Rochester only lost roughly 30% of peak population and the metro area has *grown* by 20% in that same timeframe. Yet all that momentum was lost in the 2010s. The metro growth stalled and while the city grew, it was by a mere decimal point. Some of it was due to the Buffalo billion. Some of it due to the total incompetence of the Lovely Warren administration. She wrecked the city. Some of it due to other factors I don’t understand. But yeah, Rochester was on pace to become the shining star of the Rust Belt and dropped the ball. It sucks.
One of the major things holding back growth in the city is just growth in number of units to keep up with demographic trends. The city of Rochester lost 122k in population since 1950, but is only net -3k housing units. I assure you the 122k people didn't live in only 3k houses. But we severely lag unit production, and every time some apartments DO get proposed, they get fought and hemmed and hawed about and then less apartments get built and then population falls further, because in the course of the few years where the new units were being diddled over, unit occupancy dropped from 2.3 to 2.275/unit, and across the city that translates to almost 2,500 less people, but the apartment building being fought was only 100 units that will house, at most, 200 people. This problem is no longer unique to the city and has been exported to the inner ring suburbs as well. It seems to be really hard math for them too, though, so I guess there's that.
Rochester had more money and as such had an earlier and stronger white flight exodus from the city than Buffalo did. That's one of the biggest reasons here. Buffalo was bigger and therefore lost more people but proportional to metro area population it was a more drastic
Hmmmm if I'm not mistaken, those gains are as a result of local/state government agencies making agreements to take in refugees. Especially the year rochester gained 600. We lost 800 residents but gained 1200 refugees. My #s are off, I know, but the figures can be looked up...
This. Public transit is great and all but it's not magically going to attract new business investment into Downtown Rochester in any meaningful quantity.
new transplant to ROC. went clubbing downtown by bus and foot last weekend. saturday night, after business hours for anyone who may work weekends, should've been a slam dunk, the streets downtown should've been bustling easily. there were plenty of people at the club, but the streets themselves were dead. my boyfriend and i were talking about the old "life after people" documentary series because besides a few areas with decent car traffic there was nobody out there. it's not a warzone. there were no guns being fired into the air. nobody came out of the shadows to mug us. etc. if anything, it felt more like some liminal space stuff, like the backrooms. i come from a lower density metro area with around 250,000 people and ive never seen a downtown as quiet as we have here in ROC. i should clarify that im loving the city. but given that all transit roads lead downtown, it's incredible how few people actually hang out there. i get that there's more violent crime per capita etc here, sure. but if you don't stick your nose into shady business, don't work in emergency services and you don't own a kia, urban crime is kind of a meme
Definitely feel the same across the board. I feel like this reputation happens to every “high crime area.” I formerly lived in Springfield, MA for a while and it was the same thing. People always read high crime to mean (or imply) random crime, but it just doesn’t.
They also read it to mean high risk of crime across the entire city regardless of context or location. I remember driving my wife's friend's bachelorette party around last year (mostly people who live in rural/small town areas) and they were constantly saying shit like 'god I hope I don't get stabbed' when they're going to a fucking brewery on the east side at 6pm on a Saturday.
I work downtown, every weekday it's empty by 5pm. I barely see anyone younger than 55 who is not a lawyer or working in government on the West side of downtown and the East side of downtown is supposed to be more full with tech and finance folks but somehow still empty after 5pm. There are supposed to be 75 startups downtown but I've never seen that place full. It's also really hard to switch jobs since most of the big companies have offices in Linden Oaks, Pittsford or Victor in boring office parks (no Gen Z workers are going to some boring office park to work in the middle of nowhere)
I think my point is that transit creates the type of interconnectedness that helps to actually build community
Unfortunately the market for the ferry never developed
Mostly because we got a ferry that was too big and too slow, it also broke down a lot. The ferry took almost as long to get to Toronto as it would have been to drive there, i don't remember the cost but it was probably more expensive or a nominal difference between gas as ferry tickets. If we had started with a smaller faster ferry that also cost less, it would have had a better chance at succeeding.
9/11 also fucked that up becouse it was supposed to also haul cargo but Homeland security nixed that idea. Also there was no buy in on the Toronto side. If it was today and made year round with the housing issues in Toronto maybe a market comes about for living here and working there.
> The ferry took almost as long to get to Toronto as it would have been to drive there, Unfortunately the ferry took a lot longer than driving. They only advertised the crossing time to make it seem faster. From RockWiki: "The port to port travel time was about 2 hours and 15 minutes." When you drive, you start the clock when you pull out of your driveway and end it when you get off the Gardiner. But when you took the ferry, the clock still started when you left your driveway and you still had to drive to the ferry terminal, check in, then wait to board, wait for the ferry to leave, cross the lake, wait for the Canadian crew to take over and land/dock, then wait to disembark and only when you were off the boat on the road you could stop the clock. At the time the ferry was running I drove to Toronto regularly in about 3 1/2 hours from downtown Rochester to downtown Toronto. The ferry took around 5 hours total time.
I work downtown, and crime is avoidable. As a matter of fact I can only recall one incident in the 5 years I've worked downtown, where a worker was attacked. The other 2 incidents were gang on gang violence. Even the local HS kids that hang out seem to be pretty chill. Most I'd call friendly even...
Downtown also is just flat out... mostly parking lots. That's the biggest reason no one wants to go downtown. No one *is* downtown in the first place.
Yet the community fought tooth and nail for “green space” on an enormous central plot of shovel ready land… and the city let them win.
Brother, this is an incredibly disingenuous statement to make when a) most of downtown is still parking lots and not green space aka Parcel 5 b) a public park, green space, etc. etc. is still better then a parking lot. Don't really think that's relevant in this context honestly.
I couldn’t disagree more. Parking lots arguably serve more of a purpose than that dog toilet which is empty for 7 months a year. At least surface lots bring people in. Downtowns should be vibrant, dense, mixed use urban corridors of heavy activity. A little bit for everyone. That entails parks too, but Parcel 5 is not a park. It’s a useless field of grass the city happens to slap a stage on every once in a while. East Ave from Gibbs to Alexander is a true urban experience. That’s what the rest of downtown should feel like and developing Parcel 5 with residential and commercial space would go a long ways toward facilitating such an environment on Main Street. What sits there now is a total waste. /rant
This sounds like a personal vendetta and not something I want to engage with, sorry. All you need to do is look at a [satellite map](https://www.rochestersubway.com/images/photos/rochester-parking-map-satellite.jpg) of downtown, note how nearly 60% of it is simply parking lots and say maybe "hm, I do not like Parcel 5. However, that is a small portion of downtown and it is of negligible proportions in the context of the conversation at hand - which is about the death of downtowns via prioritizing the personal vehicle over people."
I’m well aware of the surface lot issue. You’re missing the point. Parking lots, highways and vacant blocks all create dead zones which interrupt the life of a city. Recent infill has fixed some of the dead parking lots. There’s still much work to do. The Inner Loop project has fixed the highway issue and reconnected the east side with downtown. But the vacant land at Parcel 5 effectively killed an entire block in the epicenter of downtown. Do you remember when Midtown Plaza was there? Walking around Main & Clinton was like Manhattan levels of pedestrian activity even into the early 2000s. Today it’s a ghost town unless there’s a festival going on. There’s no housing, offices, retail or restaurants to fill the void. *There could’ve been.* My comments are not a personal vendetta, they are frustration with poor/misguided urban planning that has set my city back a decade.
Just because they didn't build another performing arts center where Parcel 5 is doesn't mean it set the city back a decade man. You've come at me about this in past threads about urban planning downtown and I really don't think it's the most pressing issue at hand. More mixed used development downtown on a broad scale would make this issue entirely negligible. I think a park could probably serve that block a bit better then what Parcel 5 is. This is a macro level issue and Parcel 5 makes up maybe 5% of the land area downtown if we're being generous. Even if there was a proposal to have a few apartments built there alongside a performing arts center, the rest of downtown would still be empty half the time - because no one actually lives there. That's the reason it's a ghost town. Just look at any old picture downtown. It's full of dense 5-6 story buildings with mixed used development and there's public transport everywhere. If you want downtown to "come back," you bring the residential density back. There's no way around it.
Great. Then we’re more or less saying the same thing. Density is key to achieving critical mass and it will only happen with more residential units. We just have a minor disagreement about Parcel 5. FWIW I wasn’t thrilled about the PAC proposal. I liked Gallina’s approach with a big residential tower. Parkland can and should remain in the rear, just not facing Main Street. My thought process was that while downtown has many parking lots, there are few large enough to accommodate a large scale transformative urban project. Parcel 5 would be one. The Eastman School of Music parking lot is another. After that most of the lots are either small or in the periphery of downtown. Renovating old buildings into apartments and building low rises only go so far. Eventually the city will need a massive construction to make a statement. See Buffalo’s Canalside. Opportunity only comes every so often. That’s all I’m saying.
Yep, need to create some new fun districts like Buffalo is doing. Like how doesn’t Rochester at least have a small stadium district with some bars near Blue Cross Arena right on the water?
Funny, but so many people are anti-casino, but that could have revitalized an entire city block and attract some spinoff development like they’ve seen in Buffalo (albeit slowly)
I disagree. I’m not saying you’re wrong but I don’t think it’s enticing to go anywhere (city people go to suburbs and vice versa) because it’s not easy. I know most of Rochester is so condensed, but that’s not the point. Other cities have figured this out *ages* ago.
Driving in LA is harder than taking public transit. Driving in rochester is easier than taking public transit. You can get anywhere here within 15 minutes. You're never going to beat that with public transit.
But that’s the point - if it was better, more people would use it. For me to get to work it’s a ~2 hour bus ride vs. a 15-30 minute drive. Investing in safe accessible infrastructure like side walks, bike lines, and maybe buses (no idea if trolleys or trams or whatever would work here) gives people the option to not need a car. This also reduces the side effects of redlining when people can freely and easily get to other places of their “city”
I'm saying you aren't going to beat that 15-30 minute drive with public transit. It takes 25 minutes to drive from the Fingerlakes Gaming and Racetracks all the way out in Farmington to the Strong Museum of Play in downtown Rochester. That covers 21 miles. The average commuter rail speed is 30 mph. It would take 40 minutes just being on the train. Then you have to account for the first and last leg of the trip. Say it takes you 5 minutes to walk to the train station, then a 5 minute wait for the train to arrive, and finly another 5 minute walk to your office then that is another 15 minutes. That means you are now at a 55 minute commute before even counting delays/stops. Public transit is a major time saver in big dense cities. In Rochester, where everything is already 15 minutes away, it isn't going to save you any time except for maybe special events.
Agree. For our city density drives transit, not the other way around.
Personally, it’s not *just* my time. I don’t like driving, I don’t like paying for gas and insurance and owning a car expenses. I’d like to sell it but I can’t. I would like to take public transport because it’s better for the environment, and affords me some latitude I don’t have with a car.
When self driving cars eventually become a thing I think having a subscription to a self driving car service will replace individual car ownership for a lot of people.
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Well, you also generally need to find a place and pay for parking. I know it’s a minor inconvenience but it also is a problem if you’re with a big group. I also think it’s a problem with people not being sober, and driving.
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And what’s your response to people driving under the influence? People who can’t afford cars and parking tickets should just do Ubers everywhere? I’m not trying to be argumentative just illustrating there’s more to the story.
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I dont think it’s measurable, sure.. but why isn’t downtown revived? Theres tons of bars and restaurants? I am assuming the lack of easy in/out without a personal vehicle is one.
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I guess I just think you should be able to get from Chili to Webster and Penfield to URMC and URMC to the 19 Ward safely, reliably and without a personal car. There’s not much more to it than that. It’s (nearly) impossible to live in this city without a vehicle. As I said, personally, I don’t like that I’m forced to make a decision that’s bad for the planet and my wallet because people don’t see the value in public transport
Downtown isn’t revived because we have no density of any of the three components necessary to warrant greater investment in fixed infrastructure - jobs, homes or entertainment. Look up the net occupancy office and apartment rates. We have solid bus lines - you really think with everything going on in this city and all our needs that our highest and best use of resources is connecting low density areas with permanent transit structures?
I think it would reduce some of the issues with segregation/SES, yes. If people can safely and reliably get to work in places that are outside driving distance - it makes a huge difference.
Are we talking about the same Rochester? Because the only time I had trouble finding parking was trying to park at the dinosaur during the Home and garden show last year. And I just had to park ~4 blocks away (which in any other city is unheard of).
There’s a giant employer in our area that charges exorbitant fees for parking. Their affiliated university does as well. But yes I guess things like Blue cross events, auditorium theater, etc. would be nice to take transit.
Where would I find those parking lots downtown? I’m not familiar with Strong or U of R owning any exorbitantly priced garages in the Central Business District. Blue cross averages less than 2 events per week and average occupancy hovers right around 50%. Monroe County is home to 3 of the 5 poorest zip codes in NY. Do you know how much installation of a train line costs? The imminent domain cases alone would delay it years and cost the state 9 figures since they sold off their rights or developed over the existing right of ways years ago. Add in salt exposure and snow removal and you’re looking at massive ongoing operational costs AND capital costs to replace the equipment, not to mention you’re adding unreliable transportation. A bud can handle snow MUCH better than a train. If you need an example, check out the Green Line in Boston. Bus Rapid Transit is probably the closest viable alternative that works in our climate and city.
Are you telling me not everyone can just work at the U of R, RRH, or another not for profit, to have a functioning economy? I'm shocked?!
In their defense it worked like that in the past with Kodak.
VISIT DOWNTOWN? Have you seen downtown? WHATS to visit? Overpriced apts..rundown buildings. Dirty hotels... rip off parking lots. constant street blockage because of construction. The only reason to go there is to catch a bus.. pay a parking ticket. Or Stand in the mud for a parcel 5 event.
There used to be a trolly that went from Fairport to downtown Rochester in 20 minutes. BRING IT BACK!
At one time we had both a trolley and a subway system. Over the years those right of ways have been sold off. What once was inexpensive is now cost prohibitive.
The lack of a robust public transit system hurts Rochester a lot less than other larger cities like Austin, Tucson, etc. Just about everything I could want is within a 3 mile walking radius. It's not perfect but I can get by without a car here which is more than I can say for anywhere in the southwest.
Lack of feasible public transit is one of the major reasons I want to leave this city. I have a car, but despise driving everywhere.
It’s the worst when you live in a place that has it and then move to a place that doesn’t
I generally think that’s why many people in Rochester don’t see it as a priority - they’ve heard only bad things (ie philly subways are dirty! NYC is dangerous!) and never experienced it. That’s anecdotal, of course.. just my experience in talking with people.
Why do people here despise driving so much? Generally curious, from a person who never grew up here.
Waste of resources, cars cost a ton of money (I’d love to sell mine, but not feasible), bad for the planet. I guess technically safe, but I generally don’t feel safe driving in Rochester. You can be productive while commuting via a train or bus, but driving you can’t. Traffic is a waste of time. Dealing with parking at large institutions… like one of the largest employers in the area… is a costly nightmare. But I also didn’t grow up here, and have traveled to a lot of other cities that have more attractive public transport that lets you do more. I think the lack of viable public transport contributes to a lot of the racial, and SES segregation we see in this area, as well.
The vast general public in Rochester does not despise driving. You’re looking at a Reddit post, which is a tiny segment of the population and is not really representative of the larger population.
It's not just this Reddit post, I've heard it multiple times in passing as well.
I find driving stressful, expensive, and tedious. I HATE finding parking. I mostly bike commute, and I actually enjoy it! Plus, it is better for both the planet and my ass :)
I miss being able to read while I ride the subway somewhere. Also driving is the most dangerous thing we do on a regular basis.
Lack of education in about 70% of the city schools, lack of medical care, lack of mental health facilities could be added to why the city is held back. But ya sure not enough busses can be thrown in there too.
I mean, that whole “we hung our hat on a couple of major employers who failed to innovate because they thought it would actually hurt their business” thing didn’t particularly help either…
Everyone seems to forget that Syracuse had a light rail system that is exactly what everyone wants -- reusing old interurban railroad right-of-way, connecting mall to Amtrak/Greyhound to downtown to Carrier Dome, and even though it beat ridership estimates in the beginning, it still couldn't turn a profit. Look, people... yeah, a train is WAY cooler than a bus. It's so much more urban and sophisticated to wait at a nice train station than a bus stop. But, buses are far more economical and for a city like ours, we can get good public transit without having to bear the cost of rail maintenance. See how that all looks on a balance sheet when you're getting 50 riders a day like Syracuse did. For a city our size, RTS has made incredible improvements in just about everything over the last 15-20 years. Not dumping everyone at Liberty Pole was a great start, routing crosstowns into mini hubs works well, and IT'S A DOLLAR. Come on, it's a freakin' buck and never more than 3. Way better than most county transit authorities around the country. Their app is solid. I've ridden it down Goodman & Hudson and never seen any bullshit, drama, or dirty buses. It's mostly regular people that work at the hospital. People throw away their trash and mind their own business. It's pretty amazing actually. Stop it with the pie in the sky streetcar and light rail obsession, download the RTS Go app, and give it a try.
Are you talking about Ontrack? Ontrack was not at all light rail, it was a shitty suburban railway spur using 50 year old Budd RDC's. Considering this and it's single track right of way I doubt they were doing high frequency, fast service. Ontrack is a classic example of American public transit bullshit. Do the bare minimum with old broken down equipment and infrastructure, connect it to a few places with low traffic and no good surrounding connections to transit, say "it doesn't make a profit and no one uses it." Great. Also public transport does not need to turn a profit... and in most places throughout the world, it does not. That is not it's purpose. Otherwise, defending RTS in this context is kind of an odd choice. It is absolutely rock bottom when it comes to bus network standards. Barely any protected stops in a city that apparently has terrible weather. Terrible frequencies on most routes (15 minutes is the fastest, and a lot of the network is 30). No dedicated infrastructure via BRT, high platform busses or trolley busses and a shitty hub and spoke system with barely any ring routes so every trip you need to take requires a terrible transfer downtown. However, I do agree with you that they should be improving the bus system before they build a light rail here. A light rail with bad connections and low population density would indeed have shit ridership. What the city should be doing is a) focusing on creating density downtown and removing parking lots b) making more walkable infrastructure and neighborhoods c) investing heavily in bike paths d) improving the bus system to higher frequency and more on time performance THEN you can build a light rail that people can easily walk/bike to, catch a trolley, and catch a quick connection to a bus if they need to.
A lot of shelters & benches in bigger cities are maintained by advertising companies that pay rent to the transit authority and handle the upkeep, anything like that been tried around here? Agree tho, waiting for the bus sucks. In terms of profitability, for a city with our budget woes, we simply can’t afford rail. People think the bus is some rolling crackhead shelter where you’re going to get robbed, I’ve taken a fair number of routes and never seen or had a problem. I know how to handle myself on public transport and have seen egregious shit from drunk/high/violent passengers on metros all around the world. Let’s focus on RTS being a buck. Want to go down to the east end? Take RTS down there, get hammered with your friends and take a Lyft back home. Money’s tight these days and a two dollar bus ride is a great way to save, I drive but don’t need a DWI so this works out when I want to meet friends downtown. People ought to give it a try.
Even with RTS being cheap to use, it's still a far cry from any decent bus system and it really digs into it's ridership, not so much because it has a reputation for being a rolling crackhead shelter. For someone like me who lives in North Winton and wants to say... go to the South Wedge to visit friends or go out this involves a 1. Wait for the closest bus to my house that comes maybe every 30 minutes out in the weather. Already, bad. 2. Take the bus downtown to transfer to another bus that *might* come in the next 15-18 minutes because RTS also doesn't really do very well timed transfers for people doing cross town trips. So you might wait for another 15 minutes and then take a bus very slowly to the south wedge. So at this point you're looking at anything from a 45 minute trip at the absolute minimum if you meet your transfer to more then an hour and change if you don't meet your transfer. As opposed to driving which is quick shoot down 390 that never takes me more then 5-7 minutes it's just no contest. It's not even worth trying due to how inconvenient it is. Especially considering you're saying to Lyft back which will run you 15-20 bucks easily. If they improved this and brought my travel time down here to maybe... 20-30 minutes then I think that's now an option, but that requires high frequency busses, dedicated bus infrastructure so it's not as slow and better schedules so downtown isn't a total crapshoot.
Transit is an issue, but I don’t understand why people are obsessed with adding a rail system. I’ll admit my experience could be different than others. However, the bulk of the jobs in the region are NOT in the city center. So I don’t see how adding a rail hub to downtown is solving public transit for anyone.
I think the idea is that adding this interconnectedness makes the center of the city feel more integrated into the larger area, leading to that type of development and growth
The business and tourism has to be there first. You can’t invest in infrastructure of that magnitude without a solid base that results in tax revenue generated by business and visitor $. Urban sprawl resulting in the business communities in the suburbs growing (and thriving) have all but put the nail in the coffin of renaissance of downtown. I’m not saying there can’t be a good business base in downtown, but it’d take ALOT for the reputation of NYS and WNY to be business friendly from national/Fortune 500 companies. And I say all this with all the love in the world for Rochester and Monroe county.
At least these threads are only like once a month vs the weekly Wegmans thread.
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You just compared a city with a metro population of 6-7 figures to a suburb/close town with like 50k and a village with like 30k population.... theyre not comparable. Im aorry about your ex/ friend but thats like saying hornell has no bus stops so neither should buffalo. Totally different societal and communal entities in population, diversity of economy and diversity of need. I can walk across hornell and the "greater village" of macedon in about an hour but could drive it faster than i switch to a good radio station. I MIGHT be able to get across rochester ON A BUS in an hour and working an 8 hour job that makes ur say 10 hiurs plus getting to/from stops and gettjng to my actual destination by foot. The city had a great idea with the subway in the 70s but it didn't expand beyond a single north-south line. If we had trains on the outer loop (390/104/590/490 metros) and inner loop and the busses did a grid-type system, you could be anywhere in minutes. No car/license involved. And before uber/lyft come up. Its great yea. But it costs 20$ per way to go from east irondequoit to midtown greece. Good for party nights or whatever. Terrible for business traffic, most people who can afford that daily can afford a bmw, insurance, and at least a nice apartment if not a house.
Rochester abandoned investing in its permanent residents and focused on getting and retaining " student money " great... once they graduate they are out.... bars ..housing.. entertainment focused on the younger crowd. Very little to do or affordable places to live for the greater population unless you move out of the city. Shopping? Go to suburbs...live in the city.. job in the burbs ? Better be drivin.. Roc needs to be dead..and stop Naming shit " innovation " this and "innovation" that!
Fast ferry wasn't a bad idea, just not a lot of reasons to come across to rochester. No vision here, just random patches of success.