The Urban Surface Light Rail Corridor - San Diego

Bisecting central downtown San Diego is the C Street light rail corridor. For years the corridor has held a range of opinions from urban scourge to mixed use potential. There have been some visions, speculation, and talk. There has also been a recent surge of development and activity.

Many important structures face C Street. San Diego Civic Center and City Hall, Hotels, major banks, and new residential buildings. It will be interesting to see how these projects influence the local built environment. They will answer a critical question: is the solution to the persistent challenges simply related to newness or are more complex and costly strategies necessary?

It can be safe to assume that newness will push away some of the current squatters and tent dwellers while attracting new residents and visitors. That newness along with the associated push/pull of people will be equalized by the existence of the light rail stations. C-Street will always bring in increased levels of homeless and hardened populations. That type of social distribution is common near transit stations. When viewed from the concept of newness, the challenge of C Street becomes one of congregation and the filtering of those deemed as desirable to congregate. These are difficult conversations and must be devoid of emotion.

The light rail stations at surface level further amplifies the challenges and intensifies the mixing of social levels. Grade separation can act as a transition area which regulates visibility and movement.

Another aspect important to consider is the evolution of the light rail system in San Diego. Will C Street continue to grow as a rail corridor? If so, the frequency of trains will play a crucial role. Trains traveling at a high frequency will detour important pedestrian activity and bring forth issues of public safety. These challenges will continue to degrade C Street and increase future costs to transform it into a world class transit/mixed use corridor.

I am sure there are more challenges, especially those that deal with infrastructure and utilities.

An interesting aspect to consider is C Street’s connected cousin, Park Boulevard. The Park Boulevard corridor is similar in it urban organization. The Park Boulevard corridor just seems to work better. The difference is that C Street has a large commercial office context which creates a night environment that is desolate. Park Boulevard and it’s dense residential zoning has a sustained level of activity which increases safety and its social perception of being a relatively safe urban place.

C Street does not have that perception. It has long been a place that is difficult to figure out. It is challenging to decipher the urban environment both in terms of planning and actually navigating the location on foot. Where Park Boulevard has what urbanism Jane Jacobs calls “eyes on the street,” C-Street has more of an “all eyes on me” type of feel. C Street has many desolate spaces, isolated doorways, dark porticos, and tall parking garages with blank walls fronting the street and corridor.

The Park Boulevard section of the light rail corridor benefited from the lack of parking garages facing the street. The street frontage is complete and has residents living on the floors above. There are occupied commercial spaces and wide sidewalks making the corridor pedestrian friendly. Park Boulevard does have a lane of traffic in each direction adjacent to the rail tracks but the intensity of the vehicular traffic is dulled by the well developed blocks with continuous activity.

In contrast C Street is bounded by many parking garages and large government building that shut down for the evening, leaving the corridor desolate. This makes C Street an interesting challenge. Because of those two factors: civic buildings fronting the corridor and the parking structures with entrance ramp access along C Street, I see activating this corridor as an extreme challenge even if the sporadic new developments blossom.

The most important question is what is the city willing to spend to active this corridor and transform it into a place?

I’ve thought about this topic for many years. I’ve taken the transit extensively and have spent time in C Street late at night and in the early morning. It is a place that is cold and suspicious at night and just as calculating during the day. C Street is not a corridor that you stroll through - C Street requires attention and navigation. It is not a destination but rather a local that requires one to escape from. You do not parallel C Street, you flee from it in a perpendicular fashion and travel alternate routes.

I’m eager to see how the new developments take hold and stimulate the area. Will they activate the street or continue to turn the back to the corridor? What is the way?

As these developments continue and the growth, or regrowth of downtown continues, C Street needs to be addressed with strong interventions. The city could remain at the same clip and view it as a project that will be repaired by developing adjacent lots and redeveloping sites like the California Theater Building. I am hopeful, but don’t have a confident feel about those developments invigorating change. Is see these new developments as those that you interact with by driving to the parking garage and utilizing the various building amenities rather than having an urban relationship with the actual corridor itself. This entails the large mixed use projects as being situated along an axis but remaining disjointed by the lack of cohesive connectivity. C Street is like a rail track with broken links. This urban listing break shows itself simply by walking from the station at One America Plaza to City College Station. The station at City College, an important hub with a light rail train bisecting the building at surface level is the location where the urban cohesion of Park Boulevard transitions to the disfunction of C Street.

There is a chance that the new mixed use developments are strong enough to create a linear link capable of spanning blank walls and deactivated civic buildings. A hotel project might not be the answer either. That is because a hotel is a sort of vessel that has its own sustaining functions. A patron can go to their room and enjoy all the amenities and food of the hotel without ever leaving the room. Residential projects are needed as activators. Living in an urban apartment or condo forces you to get out and shop and consume. This take us into a new realm as there is not a capable grocer store within a two or three block walking distance. When a grocery store is located within close proximity, people tend to shop small and at higher frequency. The store visit is a type of adventure where you can get your daily wares in addition to some good exercise. A full scale grocery store might not be viable when considering the stores in the East Village and near Horton Plaza. What C Street needs is a “half store” in a large mixed use project. That store must be a bit smaller than the Ralph’s on Market Street but larger than a CVS drug store. A great fit would be a Target Express where you can get your fresh fruits and veggies, water, and snacks. When you need fresh meat or fish, then you travel to the full store. When that happens that type of urban scheduling conversation that we all have in our mind becomes more robust. “I can walk and get this at this place now, and then get this at this place later after work or other errand.

Fixing C Street is more of a mental and emotional exercise rather than one solved with planning, policy, and architecture. C Street requires a shift in the conversations that we have in our minds as residents. Fixing C Street will require the shaping of behavior through form and function.

With the notion of newness set aside, I am just not convinced that these mega mixed use projects can achieve complete continuity of the corridor where pedestrian activity occurs in a parallel flow. In an active corridor, like Park Boulevard, the breaks in continuity occurs when you visit a shop or pass a lit residential doorway or live/work storefront. Open or closed those small storefronts insinuate activity and life that a blank wall or parking structure cannot achieve.

Maybe that idea of lively smallness infused with the current direction of large developments can create that spark to ignite C Street. A series of small live/work units that are closed still creates interest and allows one’s focus to remain engaged and active on the surroundings. A large civic building that is closed is like waiting for an echo that is delayed in its return. HELLLOOOO!!…… hello…… helloooo. It takes a few steps to bounce from storefront to storefront. These functions engage your mind in a mostly positive way. That’s cool artwork. Ohhh, I’ll grab a cookie when I get home. Hey! that’s cool, I’ll have to come back when their open. No, I don’t want a tattoo.

Passing a desolate civic building has a different effect. Damn, I have to do that thing at work or my jerk boss will be on my case. I forgot to do this or that. Wow, that strange guy in that smelly doorway is really creepy.

What needs to be avoided is large mixed use projects without any engagement with the street. A well lit but voided interior function along the corridor is just a tad better than an derelict civic structure. Even a new government building with its elevated plinth that fronts the street is formidable and somewhat intimidating. Those elements need to be brought down to pedestrian scale.

Things are moving along and there are tower cranes in the air. Exciting to see the progress and how the new structures transforms the urban psychology.