Unverified Voracity Is Very Excited For A Questionable Reason
EVEN THEIR HEADS ARE IDENTICALLY SHAPED
IT'S HAPPENING. Butch Jones! Got fired! Fairly obviously! And his replacement! Is!
KNOXVILLE — Brady Hoke is Tennessee’s interim head coach with two games remaining in the regular season after the school relieved Butch Jones of his duties this week.
YAIIIIIISSS. And his next game is against!
CAJUN BRADY HOKE. Why does this make me so happy? I don't know! Will I be watching this game and rooting for Tennessee? Hell yes! Will this go very very badly and still delight me? Absolutely!
Seeds and tourneys. Soccer got the #13 overall seed in the 48-team NCAA tourney, which comes with a first round bye and a home game on Sunday at 5 against the winner of the Massachusetts/Colgate game.
Meanwhile, field hockey has made that sport's final four with a hamblasting of Northwestern.
The Goal Scorer! @emmatway #GoBlue pic.twitter.com/Bol1z0V3eu
— Michigan Field Hockey (@umichfldhockey) November 12, 2017
The semifinal is Friday in Louisville against Maryland. I couldn't find any TV information, so... I guess it's not televised? If anyone knows otherwise let us know.
Coachfights! It's been testy in college hockey of late, with two-count-'em-two postgame blowups in what's historically been a very chummy coaching fraternity. The unspoken rule about not poaching recruits that Joe Tiller thought was a college football thing—thus giving the world "snake oil" as a college football term—has been more or less real in college hockey since I've followed things. That's breaking down. Denver just poached a top SCSU recruit, and this was the result:
— GOHUSKIESWOOOOO (@GOHUSKIESWOOOOO) November 12, 2017
Clear f-bombs! Exciting! But not PRESS CONFERENCE F-BOMBS!
"I guess my first comment is I want to make it loud and clear that what their coach did...was a fucking classless asshole."
That's Cornell(!) head coach Mike Schafer being pissed at Quinnipiac's Rand Pecknold—who sounds like the libertarian villain in a terrible screenplay by a Salon author—because Pecknold argued with a referee that a five-and-a-game boarding call was embellished. Which seems like a not-great reason to go off.
Baseball's recruiting is on the uptick. MGoFish has an extensive breakdown of Michigan's latest class, which is ranked #23 by Perfect Game and features pitcher Steven Hajjar:
Steven Hajjar, North Andover, MA (Central Catholic); @StevenHajjar
Hajjar is probably my favorite signee, and for a few reasons. Like mine, his last name is confusing to spell and probably gives people fits. He was committed to Maryland as recently as July and flipped to Michigan. He somehow has a GPA of 4.4 and got a 1330 on his SATs. And he is really freaking good at baseball. At the July Perfect Game National Showcase, his scouting report was a perfect 10/10, hitting as high as 93 on the gun as well as a slider that “was very consistent with plenty of depth and biting action” that can get up to 79 mph. His mechanics remind me of fellow Michigan pitcher Rich Hill, who had an excellent postseason for the Dodgers. Unconventional, but wicked offspeed pitches make hitters look foolish. Combine those mechanics with a 6′ 4″ frame and long arms and hitters will feel that the ball is being released from about 50 feet away. Good luck.
It is extremely difficult for northern schools to get all the good croots because of the ridiculous schedule they have to play; Michigan is the only team north of the Mason-Dixon line in the top 25. #38 Indiana, #42 Penn State, and #43 Maryland are Michigan's closest Big Ten competitors on Perfect Game.
Ann Arbor Urban Planning Moment. I generally like Ryan Stanton's work for MLive but I find the framing of this article to be horrendous:
Ann Arbor facing potential loss of hundreds of public parking spaces
The potential loss of those spaces is because the city's lease on two downtown surface parking lots is about to expire, and the owners of that property—First Martin, which is an advertiser FWIW—are likely to put in big D1-zoned buildings. Which was the veritable goal of a decade-long density-encouraging rezoning process. Large buildings have housing, retail, provide tax revenue, and reduce commuting to downtown offices. Surface parking lots... are there.
Incessant parking complaints from the local olds continue to baffle me. I've lived in Ann Arbor for 20 years and gone downtown several times a week at all hours and almost never even think about parking in a structure because whenever I drive up Division most of the spots are open—and that's if it's a relatively high-traffic night and I'm not aiming for something a bit closer. I do tend to avoid going downtown on Friday and Saturday nights but when I do the downside is I am parking in a structure with hundreds of open spots.
The structures get jammed during the day when work commuters arrive, which is only a problem for work commuters. Ann Arbor should ignore the concerns of people who must come downtown, because they will find alternatives like Park and Ride if forced, while keeping might come downtown people relatively happy. Which they should be unless they think parking three blocks away is a travesty.
Etc.: AFC Ann Arbor memberships available for 2018. Jim Hackett and Paul Tagliabue are speaking at the Ford School at 4 PM if you're interested in swim lanes and good coach hirin'. And Paul Tagliabue. Michigan signs five basketballists, talks about them. Hoover Street Rag on Maryland. Z/X Simpson emerging.
November 14th, 2017 at 1:57 PM ^
I'd pay to see DA COACH O waste Hoke point-blank in a leather jacket, then get in his car like nothing happened, Mike the Tiger riding shotgun.
November 14th, 2017 at 2:25 PM ^
I'm rooting for a Hoke win followed by LSU boosters resurrecting Evil Hoke at midfield.
November 14th, 2017 at 1:25 PM ^
"Quinnipiac's Rand Pecknold—who sounds like the libertarian villain in a terrible screenplay by a Salon author"
I nearly sharted. Could have cut short a very promising day.
November 14th, 2017 at 4:04 PM ^
This happened in 2014. So, I guess college coaches act badly every three years or so?
November 15th, 2017 at 8:50 AM ^
November 14th, 2017 at 1:27 PM ^
Which they should be unless they think parking three blocks away is a travesty.
This is it exactly. Ann Arbor is slowly evolving from something a lot like suburbia only with a "downtown" into something with a core that is structurally quite urban. In suburbia, you park in a gigantic parking lot in front of Kohls, then go out to move your car halfway across the lot before you go inside again at the Best Buy next door. Parking multiple blocks away from your destination is simply not part of the mentality. You don't have to have lived in a big city to see parking a few blocks away as "not a big deal," but there are people for whom parking in Ann Arbor really is the most difficult parking experience they ever encounter. And those people mostly belong to the subset of people who might go downtown, and therefore need to be appealed to. You and I may think these people are naifs, but their attitudes do have a real impact and can't be ignored entirely.
November 14th, 2017 at 2:37 PM ^
November 14th, 2017 at 3:10 PM ^
City planning requires thinking about all people and coming up with solutions which primarily support the masses without excluding the minority (to be clear, I am not using the word minorities). Your points are valid and I was disappointed to see Brian revert to the "it's not a problem for me, so what's your problem" mentality.
November 14th, 2017 at 4:11 PM ^
Anybody who deals with municipal parking in any city will tell you—as Susan Pollay has told me personally more than once—that surface lots are virtually always more popular than structures. Part of this preference is psychological, and part of it is practical.
I park in the Brown Brock lot many dozens of times per year, and frequently for trips involving destinations much farther away than three blocks. What the snide commenters rarely acknowledge is that in the vast majority of instances getting in and out of a surface lot—or street surface parking spot—takes far less time than getting in and out of a multi-level structure. Getting stuck behind a senior citizen driving a Prius in a structure will double the amount of time it takes getting a spot.
There's also the question of internal configuration of the structure, which can vary considerably. Parking in the lower levels of the apartment building on Washington and First sucks, because it's one of the tightest, most constricted structures I've ever parked in; the structure straddling Maynard between William and Liberty is cavernously spacious by comparison. If you drive a Honda Fit or Scion rolling toaster you'll be fine, but anything much bigger and maneuvering in and out of the Washington/First structure is a pain in the ass.
The mix of downtown businesses right now is heavily tilted to dining and drinking, and one of the factors influencing decisions of where to go involve the time required to get in and out of a parking spot; if you've got 90 minutes max for dinner, then you don't want to spend any more time than you need to simply parking. To the extent that A2 reduces the amount of surface parking in favor of structure-only parking, it will over time reduce the number of trips that those who reside outside the city core make to downtown.
This would make the west side A2 business community ecstatic; no longer do residents have to come downtown to get a decent beer or meal, what with Wolverine, Session Room, Homes, and Glass House out here. If the Brown Block parking is done away with, I would guess over time the number of trips I make downtown will decline in favor of establishments out in my neck of the woods on the west side. I suspect that the city planners are totally OK with this, but I wonder if downtown businesses are.
November 14th, 2017 at 4:41 PM ^
parking outweigh the massive difference in efficiency? Far more spaces per acre fit in a structure. And yes, this further increases density and congestion but that's how you tilt the transportation decision towards not driving.
The planners are not only OK with this, they want to shift your decision towards not driving. They want you to use public transportation or ride-sharing or bike or something else.
Businesses won't get less traffic net-net because for everyone that doesn't want to come downtown because they don't want to deal with a structure or any other transportation options, there will be two people that are willing to park in the larger structure and/or two people willing to ride share downtown for the additional entertainment options that development allows.
It's an identity challenge a lot of growing urban areas face. Do you restrict development in an attempt to keep the status quo/identity/character of your city, which has the effect of increasing rents dramatically, or do you develop to meet increasing demand and deal with the consequences of change?
November 14th, 2017 at 9:00 PM ^
In most any urban area, I'm expecting to take public transportation, rail, bus, whatever, and not even think about driving and parking. Ann Arbor doesn't quality as an urban area in that regard. So it's always been a question of identity, no longer small town but certainly not big city. If I have to go into town (normally for an event, not shopping or dining) I'll park wherever is available for the least amount of cost, and walk.
November 14th, 2017 at 11:39 PM ^
I normally agree; and you may, indeed, be correct regarding the preference of most people to park in a surface lot versus a structure. For myself, however, it's the opposite. In a structure, I can park without fear of neither getting myself or the inside of my vehicle wet when entering or exiting, nor when opening the trunk or hatch/liftgate to load or unload items.
Your remarks about the issues of parking in confined, unfamiliar structures (particularly in a large vehicle like a SUV) are right on. But I'm more than happy to trade those inconveniences for staying (mostly) dry.
November 14th, 2017 at 1:27 PM ^
November 14th, 2017 at 1:31 PM ^
November 14th, 2017 at 1:34 PM ^
The structures get jammed during the day when work commuters arrive, which is only a problem for work commuters. Ann Arbor should ignore the concerns of people who must come downtown, because they will find alternatives like Park and Ride if forced, while keeping might come downtown people relatively happy.
I think you'd make a pretty awful councilman with that outlook on governance. If the commuters are also AA residents, "ignore them when they complain" is generally always taken by the complainers as "give me your tax dollars, thank you, now fuck you." Rather rightfully, I would add, and then they tend to vote against you and your vision for downtown that purposely inconveniences them. Even if the commuters aren't residents, forcing them into less convenient arrangements because you think they're being dumb tends to have long-term consequences, like their employers getting unhappy.
All this is said without any value judgments on the actual parking lots in question. Just that ignoring people simply because you believe they're already forced into compliance is a rotten approach to governance.
November 14th, 2017 at 1:58 PM ^
Came here to say exactly this. The point of having parking isn't just to incentivize people who might come downtown sometimes at the expense of people who are actually working downtown. If anything workers' convenience should be a higher priority for exactly the reason that they have to make the trip; others have an easier choice and can afford to not go if they don't like the commute.
November 14th, 2017 at 2:44 PM ^
I came here to say basically the same thing. I used to work in an office downtown. My employer would not have located there if we could not park within a couple blocks of our office. I realize people want to encourage public transit use, but there would have been an employee revolt if we were forced to use Park and Ride (we had Go! Passes for a couple years, and I was the only one to use them). Basically, limiting parking limits the number of businesses that are willing to locate downtown.
November 14th, 2017 at 2:29 PM ^
But why should commuters' convenience be treated as the only important outcome in this situation? The alternative vision of downtown with lots of easy commuter parking purposefully inconveniences people who would like to live downtown but for whom there is not adequate housing supply, retailers who would like to locate there but can't find a storefront, and visitors who might come if there were more available tables or choices for dinner. And all of those are far more valuable things economically than a short walk for a commuter. Brian's never been known for sugar-coating his opinions, so fair enough on criticizing the presentation perhaps, but he's exactly right on the priorities.
November 14th, 2017 at 2:50 PM ^
Is downtown supposed to be a housing center or a business center? I think Ann Arbor wants it to be both, so making it easy for commuters and customers to get downtown should be a priority. That could mean improved parking and/or transit.
November 14th, 2017 at 2:54 PM ^
Between two useful things. 1- adequate parking for commuters. 2- two brand new retail/housing buildings providing jobs and homes and income. The second is far more important than the first, on any fact based basis.
November 14th, 2017 at 3:01 PM ^
I will say, I do not see anyone that is against the redevelopment of those surface lots. Most of that article was about the DDA and council planing for the loss of those lots, which they absolutely should be doing. I think Brian's tangent was somewhat off-point.
November 14th, 2017 at 9:06 PM ^
November 14th, 2017 at 4:19 PM ^
The owners of the average A2 downtown business would laugh in your face if you told them they had to make do with sales only to those who live downtown.
November 14th, 2017 at 2:55 PM ^
Why should anything be treated as the only important outcome? I'm just saying that totally ignoring one huge demographic, to the extent of actively making their lives worse in favor of your own preferences, is lousy governance.
To be specific on the Park and Ride thing, for example: many, many, many people highly value the ability to come and go from work independent of a transit schedule. It's why carpooling doesn't really catch on. Or they want to be able to get to their cars while at work if they have to. Or their work requires them to be able to have their car. (This, for example, is why my dad almost never took the otherwise very convenient bus to downtown Detroit.) You can't just say "oh they can take Park and Ride" because they won't.
By all means, have other priorities besides short walks for commuters, because they're certainly important. But balance them.
November 14th, 2017 at 4:08 PM ^
I do think one issue, one more accute in areas where land is easier to come by, is sprawl. People want to have a large house with a nice yard and so they commute into town, which is fine but necessitates parking for them. By comparison, I've lived in two major NE cities and in both we rented/bought places closer to the city center at the expense of land specifically because we liked the ability to take public transportation (or even walk) to work and events. Hell, I take my two kids to day care and then run to my downtown office and I don't touch a subway if I don't want to. And we're not super-close; I'm about 5 miles away from work, 1-ish away from day care. That's a lifestyle choice by me and my family and I get that, but AA always struck me as a mid-size town's attempt at "urban" living to some degree, and so walking 1/2 a mile to your office shouldn't be crazy for a lot of people. Again, that may be a personal decision, but when I lived in A2 I knew way too many people who'd drive from their house on Miller to their office near Main and Williams, then complain they could have walked faster than waiting for traffic.
November 14th, 2017 at 6:32 PM ^
He's not arguing for completely ignoring anyone (while admitting that Brian made it seem that way). His point was precisely about having the right balance. Commuters shouldn't necessarily be entitled to ample parking at the expense of the preferences of people who live downtown or near downtown. And so a balance does have to be reached.
Since you can never give everyone their optimal solution, you have to make tradeoffs. They're saying that the right balance is to prioritize developing a surface parking lot that only has a couple hundred parking spots to increase housing supply, provide more retail options, more jobs, etc.
If the only downside is that 200 people have to walk a couple blocks further per day, they're arguing that is a tradeoff much preferred to not turning a parking lot into something more beneficial.
November 14th, 2017 at 2:53 PM ^
to commuter/carpoolers? These could reduce the parking space requirements for people who are downtown on a reliable basis.
November 14th, 2017 at 2:58 PM ^
November 14th, 2017 at 8:58 PM ^
November 14th, 2017 at 9:09 PM ^
Huh? One of the great things about Ann Arbor is that downtown and campus are the same place...
November 14th, 2017 at 10:11 PM ^
November 14th, 2017 at 1:43 PM ^
November 14th, 2017 at 2:58 PM ^
after Roy Roundtree flipped to UM on signing day.
November 14th, 2017 at 1:46 PM ^
I live west of Ann Arbor in Chelsea, a small town with a fairly vibrant downtown. Around our downtown there are four municipal parking lots, supplemented with street parking almost everywhere. All of it is free -- not a meter in sight. Though Chelsea's downtown is quite healthy (especially for a town its size), it's INCREDIBLY rare that you'd have to park more than a block from downtown at most (and often not more than half a block or so). If the lots are full, there's always street parking. I have a physical disability that makes walking a bit difficult and exhausting, so being able to minimize my walking distances is more than just a convenience for me. Except for the rarest occasions during the biggest events that draw the biggest crowds, it has not been my experience that parking in Chelsea is lacking.
And yet people still complain about parking. Able-bodied people who shouldn't have to give even a moment's thought to a brief walk from their car to their destination. People have said they prefer to avoid downtown because it's too difficult to park. Recently the idea was floated of converting one of the surface lots into a two-story structure.
If free parking within a block of the destination is not sufficient for parking complainers, then there will never be sufficient parking in any city.
Complainers are going to complain.
November 14th, 2017 at 2:33 PM ^
I will say that I'm almost always baffled by most people's approach to parking. I have two main criteria for what is a good parking spot:
1) cheap, if not free
2) easy to get in and out of
I might add "safe" depending on the location. "Shortest possible walk" is pretty low on the list and not much of a consideration for me. But it seems to be the only thing a lot of people care about, as evidenced by the number of people who are willing to pay $50 on a Sunday to have the right to spend half an hour trying to leave a parking lot that is in the shadow of Ford Field.
November 14th, 2017 at 2:54 PM ^
I'm in this camp, too, but remember that not everyone is able to walk long distances to save money on parking (older folks, people with small children, pregnant women, those with mobility issues, etc.).
November 14th, 2017 at 4:35 PM ^
in the shadow of Ford Field last time I went to a Lions game (at least 5 years ago now). I think I paid $40 for the privilege of being handicapped. It would be nice if they would differentiate between people who park close for the convenience and people who park close because each step is more difficult than it should be and charge the latter a bit less, but I don't think that'll ever happen.
November 14th, 2017 at 4:46 PM ^
to see the comments about parking in downtown Chelsea. I was happy to see rebuttals from people who don't see what the fuss is all about, but I did not expect to see so many people so adamant that parking in Chelsea is a Serious Issue.
It's also shown up in the conversation surrounding the impending move of a local business: the business is moving from the fringe of downtown with its own lot to the heart of downtown with a municipal lot directly out the back door (along with the abundant street parking and the three other lots right nearby). News of the move was met with a surprising amount of consternation from people who said it would be too hard to park at the new location.
I wish I had an iea of how to change the mindset of No Walk Is A Good Walk among able-bodied drivers.
November 14th, 2017 at 1:54 PM ^
Having spent most of my adult life hustling commercial/office and industrial real estate, I can assure you that businesses have and will move for better parking arrangements.
You have a glorious little downtown going on right now, you should give some thought toward keeping it that way. Pissing off people with options is never a good idea for a community. Hubris kills. Of all people, you should know that by now.
November 14th, 2017 at 2:39 PM ^
If easy parking were so critical to businesses in general, NYC would be abandoned and downtown Detroit would be a mecca. The truth is that transportation is the problem and it can be solved in a variety of ways. But a lot of people in smaller cities (and especially in MI) fixate on parking because they can't imagine anything other than driving up to the door.
November 14th, 2017 at 2:59 PM ^
NYC will be interesting to see moving forward as it historically was the center of many many worldwide businesses so people put up with BS in order to have those jobs. Lets see if they can keep it up in the age of the internet where business can be done anywhere.
November 14th, 2017 at 8:40 PM ^
November 14th, 2017 at 3:07 PM ^
There are obviously regional differences. Businesses may not necessarily care about parking per se, but they always care that their employees can conveniently get to work. In New York, that's possible because the train comes every few minutes and is close to practically every employer.
In other cities they "fixate" on parking not because people can't imagine anything other than driving, but because people basically always need to get in and out of work conveniently and on their own schedule. Smaller cities can't afford a huge, massively dense transit network that serves every inch of the city at literally any minute of the day.
People make their own value judgments and they do it rather more intelligently than merely out of a lack of imagination. Personally, I've checked the bus schedule and decided for lots of different reasons that taking the bus is a horrible idea, in no small part because if I needed to stay late, and missed the bus, well, daily Uber rides aren't cheap. There are thousands of different reasons people want their cars.
November 14th, 2017 at 3:10 PM ^
parking isn't terribly important in NYC for presumably obvious reasons - most of the NYC residents I know don't own cars, and are quite happy to get around by public transportation. Now, try to make them live or work far from a subway line (or bus/ferry in some cases), and it's a whole different conversation...
November 14th, 2017 at 6:50 PM ^
People who live in NYC choose do to so because they don't mind riding public transportation and don't need to drive right up to the door of whereever they are going. They decided the benefits of urban living (lots of work options, lots to do, etc) outweigh being able to drive wherever they want to go with easy parking. And obviously business do pretty well in NYC.
The question is whether Ann Arbor businesses are completely dependent on employing people that will only commute by car. If you make it more difficult for them by increasing housing supply, will the housing supply be filled with people that can take those jobs that you're worried people won't want?
I don't know the answer to those questions, and other have pointed out that it's a transformation that won't work. But it's entirely possible that by transforming downtown to a more vibrant, densely populated place you actually could improve desirability for businesses and residents alike. You'd obviously have to attract residents/workers with different priorities and the city is betting that is not only possible but demanded. Risk they're willing to take. It's probably a smart one.
November 14th, 2017 at 4:05 PM ^
If easy parking were so critical to businesses in general, NYC would be abandoned and downtown Detroit would be a mecca
Parking in downtown Detroit really isn't that easy (or at least, not if you don't want to pay through the nose).
November 14th, 2017 at 1:54 PM ^
The Clappening, Part II
November 14th, 2017 at 4:37 PM ^
November 14th, 2017 at 1:58 PM ^
"The structures get jammed during the day when work commuters arrive, which is only a problem for work commuters."
No, that is also a problem for people who want to visit or patronize a business during the same time period.
It is absolutely an issue IMO. But Ann Arbor govt gonna Ann Arbor.
November 14th, 2017 at 2:46 PM ^
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