Lecture at Beit-Almemar: "Pedestrian Road Safety"

As part of our efforts in building the capacity of Road Safety professionals in Jordan. The Jordanian Architects Society with cooperation of The Road Safety Center of Excellence is holding a public lecture at the "Jordanian Architects Society", targeting the architects and engineers.

The lecture titled: "An Architectural Perspective on Pedestrian Road Safety "


Who: Architect Emad Amin Salameh, RSCOE GM


When: Saturday, March 21st at 6:00 PM


Where: Beit ALMemar ( Jabal Alqal3a )

Invitation is open for the public.

Amman Institute

Toward building the excellence of leadership and development, the Mayor Omar Maani signed an agreement with one of the World’s leading transportation research organizations, the Institute of transportation Studies (ITS) at University of California, Berkeley to collaborate on modernizing GAM’s transportation system.

The agreement signed by Mayor Omar Maani and Prof. Samer Madanat, the Director of ITS last July 2008 to will establish a research and training program for GAM. Research topics under consideration include: Clean Fuel Options for Public Vehicles, including buses and taxis; Pricing Strategy to Increase Public Transit Ridership; Analysis of Dedicated Bus Lanes in Amman; and Gender Considerations in Public Transportation.
Mayor Maani stated that he was very pleased to have GAM associated with ITS, because ‘…it will connect GAM to a recognized center of excellence in transportation planning & engineering; improving the mobility within the City is one of our priorities under the Amman Plan’.
The Amman Institute is a not-for-profit research institute established by GAM to advance the urban agenda for the metropolitan area and other urban centers in Jordan.
Amman institute is currently working on Amman Real Estate Intelligence Report. More about amman institute go to: http://www.ammaninstitute.com

A DEAD CITY IS A CITY WITH MALLS

When the city starts building more malls it will loose it's ability to be a livable city and it will die.
A livable city is when the citizens shop, stroll, and socialize on the sidewalks and the streets.

Who would imagine that ZAHRAN street will have a Shopping Mall of more than 11 dunum land? Who would imagine to locate a Shopping Mall between the 6th and 7th circle? between the two inaccessible nodes to an unlivable corridor! Who would imagine after Jordan Gate and the many many debates and problems it caused and a few meters away on the main corridor we will have another MALL?

What about Wakalat street which is only a few meters away? What about the Whole Swefieh shopping area? How much more traffic will this new mall generate? How much will it harm the businesses in the area?

Was it part of the Amman development plan? HDMU? or Corridor intensification?

If we couldn't stop building the Jordan gate towers! And nobody is calling for putting them down. Can't we immediately stop the building of this mall?

I wanna be a believer. I wanna see a livable city, a city with a soul.
I don't know from where this MALL came from!

Excuse me but we do live in a city full of ignorance, greed and conspiracy. On the other hand, we do have great leadership surrounded by a few good men who can make a difference, but they need to move faster.

Instead of building malls we could have infrorced an urban re-generation plan for the Swefieh area were all the shops, and businesses become part of it. Delivering solutions to incrase the social, economical, and urban live of that neigbourhood.

Related Posts:
Discount Stores, Le Carrefour opening in Amman - transforming our cities:
Rainbow street transformed to a shopping hub
From an out of place architecture to an out of place identities.
Starbucks VS Tsch Tsch
Boycott Restuarants in Amman

Slow Seasonal business ...Why? Building what and why Amman?

Amman streets

Amman City has an enormous traffic problem. Streets are overrun with cars, pedestrians are jammed onto sidewalks, and forced into dangerous traffic, buses have no schedule, and deliveries, taxis, and emergency vehicles struggle to get through.

Amman's new traffic planning policy primarily attempts to maximize vehicular through put. This fails to consider how pedestrians, and transit-users can improve the total capacity of our streets.

Streets are more than just car corridors; they are valuable civic spaces and resources that need to be wisely allocated. Improving these public spaces is the simplest way to improve the quality of life for all Ammanies.

Amman city streets ate almost entirely devoted for cars. Cars are the most inefficient users of Amman City street space. A sensible, sustainable transportation policy would prioritize transit users, and walkers.

Related posts:
Unfriendly Streets
Mechanisms to reduce traffic accidents
Police Security Department
Toward improving the transportation system and decreasing car emission

Limiting Chain Stores in our neighborhoods

Should chain stores be required to fit in with the character of a neighborhood, and should their proliferation be capped? Those are some of the crazy ideas being tossed in my mind. But, WOW these are some drastic measures for a capitalist society. We need to start working toward formulating a retail zoning plan for the neighborhoods that would prevent chain stores from displacing local businesses and generally keep them from swamping the area more than they already have. Will local politicians' endorse the plan? It's way too early to tell, but we may be approaching the day when enjoying a gingerbread latte, Starbucks latte, while strolling Rainbow St. could be considered a dangerous political high-wire act.

Related Posts:

Slow Seasonal business ...Why?

Building what and why Amman?

Discount Stores, Le Carrefour opening in Amman - transforming our cities:

Rainbow street transformed to a shopping hub

From an out of place architecture to an out of place identities.

Starbucks VS Tsch Tsch

Boycott Restuarants in Amman

Introducing the new Downtown Amman

New Downtown Amman, Photo by: Emad Salameh

This is the model of the new Downtown Amman, presented at Cityscape Dubai 2007 by Mawared. The project is loated between the downtown Roman theater toward east covering Raghadan area and beyond.

This project was described by the GAM consultant Mr. Jaime "a sustainable city advocate", who presented his experience to GAM early this month as a "Great Project" during his speach about sustainability.

If this model was only for presentation, it was a bad propaganda for Amman, it's history, present, and future. This design proposal, and it's model presentation didn't meet the standrads of projects being presented to the world of investors, and developers at one of the most important real estate expo, Cityscape.

A disaster! We have great consultants architects and planners in Jordan who are qualified up to the international standards to design, and plan the city, but, when it comes to the most important decisions and projects we don't see them getting involved, or maybe get involved but we don't see this implemented on the ground.

Why? Shouldn't the architects and planners raise their voices higher? Are they making enough to educate and participate in shapping the city?

If the decision makers don't have the knowledge to understand the city Urban planning and development. Shouldn't the architects become more proactive, and stand up for what they see as right or wrong?

Our architects and Urban planners need to be more involved, and have more power participating in the the decision making process. Then we see more mature projects than this one, or Jordan Gate, or Abdali, or Ras El-Ein, or Rainbow street, or Wakalat, or the new expansion strategy .
Then, we re-imagine Amman with more parks, and pedestrian and less cars, we see Amman with streeets as civic places, more trees, less pollution and noise.


Related Posts:
We need Amman to be environmentaly sustainable and green
Regarding the new GAM Interim Strategy
Amman City Streets
Building what and why Amman?
Opening of the complex travel north and the conversion of Abdali into Garden
Promoting for transportation alternatives in Amman City

Parking

Parking building in Swifieh

New parking building in Swifieh is now under construction. It will be owned and operated by a private company for 25 yeas till the GAM take it back. The drivers will be charged to park their cars, not sure how much, and the revenue will go to the company. Another parking building will be constructed near Al-Wakalat street.

These projects might help in solving growing demand for parking in Amman. Currently, available free parking can be found at the alternative street side parking, but, not for too long. In the near future I see that we will start paying for these free street parking.

We can see this happening at Uhm-Uthaena Souq "the jewelry stores" where you will be charged to park in the street.

This will increase the cost of living and will increase traffic since most of the drivers will still cruise the streets trying to find an empty free parking spot. Not to forget also the effect on the environment.

Accommodating parking and driving is a problem, instead of accommodating car driving we need to look at transportation alternatives as better means for commuting in the city. I will mention again the effect of the new GAM planning strategy on traffic and parking. Increasing the density of population will increase the traffic problem unless we improved our pedestrian and streets network and adopted the mixed approach so we will be able to walk instead of driving.

Will building parking in Amman solve the increasing parking problems? Will you pay to get a parking spot? Won't you prefer walking, taking public transit (if we have any!!!), or taking a taxi and drop you wherever you want?

I mentioned this too in many previous posts:

Regarding the new GAM Interim Strategy

Amman City Streets

Promoting for transportation alternatives and bicycle lanes in Amman City

Amman Mini-Metro from the 1st circle to the 8th circle?

Opening of the complex travel north and the conversion of Abdali into Garden

GAM uses GIS to enhance performance

Creating digital maps and maps content for Jordan

Jordanian Disability Act

Could this happen ... Maybe one day.

I always wonder why we don't see any disables in our streets, and one major reason is our urban streets and buildings that is not friendly to disables.

I read in the news today that there are some discussions to apply building codes designed to facilitate the movement of people with disabilities and ensure that all institutions adhere to such codes. HRH Prince Raad, the Chief Chamberlain and the Minister of Public Works and Housing Hosni Abu Gheida, head of the Jordanian National Construction Council discussed plans to construct a permanent headquarters to host the higher council.

These acts have been implemented since a long time in other countries. It's purpose is to prohibit discrimination on the basics of disability by public accommodations and requires places of public accommodation and commercial facilities to be designed, constructed, and altered in compliance with the accessibility standards established by this act.

It's such an important initiative to build such codes, however, we all know that movements in our streets need to be facilitated not only for disables but for pedestrians in general.

Moreover, some challenges might be faced in implementing the codes especially for existing constructions. Focusing on public facilities like ministries, Schools, Museums, and parks might be the first step for implementation.







Type rest of the post here

Rainbow street transformed to a shopping hub

The Greater Amman Municipality (GAM) said it has completed the first and second phases of the renovation and development project of Abu Bakr street, Rainbow, at a cost of JD 826,000. Director of the Works Department in GAM Eng. Adel Rosan said GAM will start the third phase before the mid of this month noting that the duration of the project is 8 months, but the municipality will complete the project before its planned time. The street will be designated for the pedestrians and the small vehicles. The project includes tiling, expand the sidewalk, designate two parking zones and rearrange the shops front sides. The project is one of several similar projects to develop the Amman downtown to attract tourists and citizens and to make the area as a shopping hub.

Amman with it's east and west part is experiencing a lot of transformations. Wither it's the Towers and high density buildings, architectural styles, or urban centers.
The current pedestrian streets in Amman are Thaqafah in Shmeisani neighborhood, Wakalt in Swefieh, and recently the Rainbow street in Jabal Amman.
Having pedestrian friendly locations is important to Amman city urban development. However, I see these projects locations are transforming those places into a modern, commercial, and a market for investors to buy and sell properties.

If we look at Jara for example, it did transform Jabal Amman to a new commercial magnet and it didn't respect the history of the neighborhood. The neighborhood around Jara is unique and famous of traditional houses but Alas...moreover it's going to be connected to the rainbow under-construction commercial strip transforming it to a mall-ish street type neighborhood attracting a crowd of noisy teenagers hanging out, and the pollution that comes from the market.

Renovation can have many meanings, it might mean transforming and it might mean conserving. Changing residential neighborhood into mixed-use districts, have impact on the place, it's people, and it's identity.
We have a lot of history and character that shaped the identity of Amman city that's unique with it's buildings, streets and neighborhoods. Unfortunately, it's being transforming in a fast pace trying to catch up with the opportunity of capitalizing in it paying it's price at the cost of it's identity, and the comfort of the existing neighbors.

What do you think?

Related Posts:

Building what and why Amman?

From an out of place architecture to an out of place identities.

"The Transformers"

Amman City Streets

Jordan Gate

The traffic and parking congestions at the streets servicing the location of Jordan gate,
photo by Emad Salameh

The latest regarding the Jordan Gate towers:

1. It's going up to 44 floors.
2. The GAM were a partner but the current administration, lead by mayor Maani, withdrew from it due to the challenges to GAM and the "inappropriate" location.
3. +50 applications for building towers in AMMAN.

Do you think that the GAM new administration could have done more than withdrawing from the project and sell their shares, since they knew the challenges and it's inappropriateness???

AMMAN - With the completion of the 34th floor of one of the under-construction Jordan Gate twin towers, the building is officially the tallest in Jordan now. The building, which weeks ago broke the 31-floor record set by Le Royal Hotel on the 3rd Circle, is planned to go up to 44 floors to become a landmark visible from every corner of the capital. The two towers of the $300 million project will be connected by a multistorey podium. An official supervising the construction said that a total of 60 civil engineers and 1,200 workers are working on the project, 70 per cent of whom are Jordanians.
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Related Post:

• Amman City Streets
  
• "The Transformers"
• From an out of place architecture to an out of place identities.
• From an Out of Place societies to an Out of Place Identities
• Challenging
• The buildings regulations for all the proposed uses of lands
• GAM to construct complex for public firms in Amman
• Building what and why Amman?
  

implemented by the Bahrain-based Gulf Finance House (GFH), the project started in 2005 as a strategic partnership with the Kuwait Investment and Finance Company and the Greater Amman Municipality (GAM), which initially contributed the 28,500 square metres land before it withdrew from the partnership. Sharjah-based Al Hamad Construction and Development Company is the contractor. His Majesty King Abdullah on May 29, 2005 laid the foundation stone for the Jordan Gate project, the first phase of the $1 billion GFH’s Royal Metropolis plan. Jordan Gate will house executive offices, conference facilities, a five-star hotel and an array of retail outlets. But work has not progressed smoothly as hoped. In September 2006, work on the project was halted, when three stories of the north tower collapsed, killing four workers and injuring 15 others. A month earlier, a fire broke out in the 8th storey of the north tower, causing no fatalities or injuries. In September last year, GAM Mayor Omar Maani suspended works in the Jordan Gate project, citing the fact that the project started without proper licensing. Later, the municipality withdrew from the partnership and sold its 10 per cent stake to Kuwaiti Bayan Holding Company, which paid JD10.5 million for the shares. Maani said the project posed challenges to GAM, including its “inappropriate” location in the 6th Circle area, which was approved by the previous administration of GAM. The official from the Jordan Gate said that work is going ahead of schedule, despite the mishaps. He said that currently, the skeleton phase of a storey needs five days to be completed. The building will remain the only one in its category located in this part of Amman. GAM in February limited the construction of high-rises to four areas in the capital. The 6th Circle neighbourhood was excluded. Investors can choose from Abdali, Abdoun, Jubeiha and the airport road. The locations were identified as part of the first phase of GAM’s Amman Master Plan.
Road capacity, infrastructure, preservation of heritage, maintaining green areas and creating suitable spaces for pedestrians were the major considerations when the areas were selected. Last week, Dubai Construction Company announced that work began in its 34-storey Vertex Tower. So far, GAM has received more than 50 applications for towers to be built in the designated areas, according to GAM officials. Jordan Times 28 August 2007