"T3": 200 block of Johnson Av NW (Google Earth screenshot)
(12/2/2025) Work continues apace on Cedar Rapids' casino, due to open at the end of this month. In time, when it is a fabulous success and we are all rolling in prosperity, you can tell me how dumb I was back in 2025 for my negative outlook.
There are three reasons to oppose casinos. The first two relate to the morality of gambling and the class distribution of gambling losses (which fall much more on the poor). There are also doubts, given the rise of Internet gambling, whether brick and mortar gambling still has a future. I'll take all those as read, but my specific complaint about this casino has to do with its use of land. We are taking several blocks close to the center of the city, which should be used for more intense development, and using it for what is ultra-suburban development.
Casino, under construction, F Avenue view
Andres Duany, one of the earliest new urbanists, described traditional development patterns as a transect that gradually tapered from the most intensive development at the urban core ("T6") to agricultural ("T2") and natural ("T1") areas at the edge of town. (See the discussion at Steuteville 2017, as well as Andres Duany, Jeff Speck and Mike Lydon. The Smart Growth Manual [McGraw Hill, 2010], 1.4)
This ordering is "useful" (Steuteville's word), because it preserves space in urbanist design for nature and agriculture, enables people not to be completely dependent on cars, provides a unified concept of development, and allows that development to proceed in harmony with surrounding areas.
Future casino parking. I-380 in background
Development according to the transect is more inclusive by centering economic opportunity on the urban core. Kevin Klinkenberg (2015) wrote about why urbanism matters most in urban cores: If we truly care about the less fortunate in society, we would want them in places of maximum opportunity for access to jobs at low cost--not scattered about in suburbia. Less need to drive, and more green space at the edge of town, is also better for the natural environment on which we all depend. And making intense use of the most valuable land is better for city finances.
Casino construction, from 1st Street NW
Cedar Rapids, like most towns, was built according to the transect long before Duany coined the term. Downtown looks like "T6" and the core neighborhoods look like "T3." The problem is that, in the decades since the town was built, the area around town that was once "T4" and "T5" was gutted and remains a doughnut of emptiness. Instead of small but intense development that could provide customers and clients for downtown businesses as well as property tax revenue for the city, we have what we have, making for a car-dependent city and lots of complaints about parking.
Future casino parking
City officials are enthused about the advent of the casino--scheduled to open 12/31/2026--because they know the political value of a flashy project that gets a lot of attention and promises fun for all. But I wish the casino campus, parking lots and all, would look more like the stretch of Johnson Avenue pictured above, which I called in 2022 one of my favorite streets in the city. The nine blocks of this project could be a neighborhood with workers and shoppers for downtown as well as neighborhood businesses, and students for nearby schools if we ever decide to build schools near the center of town again (another sore subject, for another day). The tax value of an individual property would be small, but collectively they would likely provide more city revenue than the casino will.
If one of the residents meets with misfortune, the neighborhood will survive, and the house will survive under new ownership. If the casino fails, I think we're looking at a big box with a long term vacancy.
If we must have a casino, put it out on Route 100.
One last look, from the trail along the Cedar River
It felt like it! (And on the Celsius scale, it actually was.)
(11/28/2025) Consumer confidence may be down at COVID levels, and Black Friday ads are increasingly oriented to websites, but it's still Black Friday. If you give a boy a parking lot, he's going to want to take a picture of it. At least it was warmer than last year, though at first not by much. Eventually the sun came out and it was all right.
Along the way, I saw this marquee.
Question, 224 Collins Road NE
The riddle was not funny, which weirdly reassured me I was not becoming hypothermic.
Answer, 224 Collins Road NE
Strong Towns started Black Friday Parking in 2013; my first year was 2015, covering roughly the same territory as this year. For the record, I also wore the same Garfield School sweatshirt. The Parking Reform Network has taken over the promotion, but the point remains the same: to document excess surface parking, even on what is arguably the busiest shopping day of the year (Lefebvre 2025).
I started a little past 9:00 at the bus stop on Twixt Town Road, close by the Collins Road Square shopping plaza. It was maybe one-third full.
Collins Road Square, looking towards Petco
Collins Road Square, looking towards Michael's
Across Collins Road is Lindale Mall, which dates from the early 1960s, but the Collins Road side has gotten quite the facelift. Its many parking lots were half-full, maybe more.
Lindale Mall, parking lot facing Collins Road
Hobby Lobby had the fullest parking lot I saw, easily 60 and maybe 75 percent full...
180 Collins Road, looking towards Hobby Lobby
...but even that plaza had plenty of empty spaces.
180 Collins Road, other side of the plaza
There were no cars parked in the huge lot on the other side of Collins Road. It has been vacant since the Hy-Vee grocery store. I don't know for a fact that Hy-Vee is retaining ownership of the building and just leaving it vacant, but I wouldn't put it past them; they tried that at their Mound View store, which also remains vacant anyhow.
empty parking lot at vacant building, 279 Collins Road (utility pole cleverly used to block sun)
Across Northland Avenue from the former grocery store, however, Northland Square plaza's parking lot was well used, being at least 60 percent full.
Northland Square from the east
But even today, there were plenty of parking spots going unused.
Northland Square, middle of the plaza
I cut across the Collins Aerospace parking lot--mostly empty, with a skeleton crew working today--and ended up at the Blairs Ferry Road Target. It had a lot of shoppers, and its parking lot was at least two-thirds full...
Target parking lot, east edge
...but a great big parking lot is hard to fill.
Target parking lot, west edge
I've said most years that I don't think these particular parking lots are driven by mandates in the zoning code (though those do exist). It's just how we develop commercial strips. Collins Road may be the ghastliest such strip in our city--though the Westdale area gets some votes, too--but it's just one example of development we shouldn't be doing. The parking lots themselves are just part of the damage, but they do more damage in town than they do on the suburban edge. I'll have more to say about that in a future post.
In a Strong Towns post entitled "What Comes Next After Abolishing Parking Mandates?" Tony Jordan of the Parking Reform Network argues that repealing such mandates is the first step on road to truly walkable cities:
To build the type of cities we want, to take advantage of zoning reforms that re-legalize compact, walkable, and transit-rich neighborhoods, we have to continue to pursue comprehensive parking reforms that go beyond repealing minimums and actively combat car dependency. Fortunately, these additional reforms and strategies are also simple, impactful, and fiscally advantageous. Cities should price their curbs to manage demand and spend the revenue on infrastructure and programs that improve safe, convenient, and equitable access to our communities for people traveling by any mode, not just in their cars. (Jordan 2022, italics mine)
Students exit the city bus, catty-corner from Washington High School
A walking audit is a good way to assess walkability in a specific area. Walking enables anyone to see how easy or difficult it is to walk there, not only for yourself, but also for others who may not be as experienced or able-bodied. Daniel Herriges of Strong Towns argues: You see how your neighbors go about their needs, how they interact with each other, and where they face difficulties in negotiating the environment. And you can take it all in and reflect on it in a way that you can't possibly do from behind a windshield (Herriges 2019).
Edward Erfurt's recent Strong Towns article examines a recent project in his hometown of Charles Town, West Virginia (not to be confused with Charleston, West Virginia, which is not quite 300 miles away). Two new blocks of sidewalk connect downtown Charles Town with civic buildings like the police station. However, [a] the street was also widened, which encourages drivers to go faster; and [b] a key intersection is missing crosswalks. As a result the objective of safe walking remains elusive. Erfurt's piece concludes with some appropriate policy remedies.
Choosing places to do a walking audit can bias the results. It's easy to choose places where walking is nearly impossible (any of our town's stroads, streets near schools that have no sidewalks), or rather pleasant (between downtown buildings). And the biggest obstacle to walking in my town--perhaps yours, too--is the lack of destinations within a popularly accepted walking distance. However, you don't need an analytical microscope to see what's clearly unacceptable or successful infrastructure.
So let's try three walks that aren't quite as obvious:
(1) Geonetric Building to Lion Bridge Brewing Co. (0.5 mi). Geonetric is a health care marketing firm that relocated to New Bohemia in 2014, a key moment in that neighborhood's post-flood reconstruction. Its building also houses several other companies, the nonprofit NewBoCo, and the Vault Coworking space where I have written many of these posts. Lion Bridge started that same year, locating just across the Cedar River in Czech Village.
Lion Bridge is on 16th Avenue, which runs behind Geonetric's parking lot. It's not a particularly busy street, but it's a sort of bypass around New Bohemia's commercial district, and cars can move pretty quickly. It's best to get across as surreptitiously as you can.
Once across 16th, it's duck soup getting to Lion Bridge. You do have to walk past Tornado's, which people close to me rate as the best burger in town.
Tornado's Grub & Pub, 1600 3rd St SE
There's not much cross-traffic on this side of 16th Avenue, although that may change as the area develops. Another block, and you're at the river.
The Bridge of Lions over the Cedar River
The slope of the bridge seems gentle enough for a wheelchair to manage, although I'd like to see one in action before I proclaim it so. The sidewalks are at an unusual height off the street, so don't fall! There are painted bike lanes on the street, though some cyclists prefer the sidewalk.
Riv vu
Cross the bridge, and now we're on the southwest side. A pillar marks the entrance to historic and charming Czech Village.
Entering Czech Village
Made it!
Lion Bridge Brewing, 59 16th Avenue SW
An uncomplicated walk, as long as there's not too much competition for space on the bridge. Today--another cold one--there was none.
(2)My house to Washington High School (1.1 mi). Our six years as Washington parents ended in 2015, but we and it remain in the same places. There are sidewalks the whole way, mostly new or recently-repaired.
Some ice issues where the sidewalks cross alleys
To get to the high school, you have to cross Forest Drive sooner or later, and it's best to do it sooner, because the sidewalk on the west side of the street ends before Linden Drive. Moreover, the intersection of Linden and Forest can get interesting, because eastbound and southbound traffic can't see each other. (One collision was narrowly averted this morning, in fact.) So it's best to be safely on the east side before you get to Linden.
Intersection of Forest and Linden is complicated for walkers (Google Earth screenshot)
The intersection of Forest and Cottage Grove, where the high school is located, is uninteresting except at the times when school starts and when school lets out.
Cars on Forest backed up at Cottage Grove
Could a roundabout ease this brief daily traffic jam? It's come up a couple of times, getting beaten back by vigorous neighborhood opposition. And how would a roundabout affect pedestrians' ability to cross one or both streets at school time?
Interestingly, I saw no one walking to school this morning... no one walking at all, in fact, except for one fellow and his dog. It was chilly, but...
(3) Somebody's house on 8th Street NW to Cultivate Hope Corner Store (0.6 mi). The Cultivate Hope Corner Store is a neighborhood grocery started by the Matthew 25 organization in 2022. The building housed a small grocery store a long time ago, and according to the 1953 Polk's City Directory was at that time the home of Shaheen Sundries; Cultivate Hope Corner Store is the third business in the building since the flood.
Most of the Near Northwest area west of Ellis Boulevard has been restored or rebuilt since the 2008 flood. I'm listening to Donald Shoup describe the wrecked state of Los Angeles sidewalks to John Simmerman, but here there are smooth new sidewalks all the way to the store...
Quiet street: 1300 block of 8th Street NW
...including the latest crosswalk treatments...
Ellis Road NW intersection
...unless someone does this. Why?
snow obstruction on 8th Street NW
It was easy for me to step over this, but it would trouble anyone in a wheelchair or with a stroller. And if someone trips over it, who do they sue?
Properties east of Ellis was predominantly bought up and demolished after the flood; only now that flood walls are funded has redevelopment begun, including these row houses.
row houses near Neighborhood Corner Store on 8th St NW
The intersections on Ellis at F and E Avenues have new roundabouts.
Ellis Road approaching roundabout at F Avenue NW
This could be a challenge for pedestrians if traffic is heavy, or there's a lot of in-and-out at the Casey's, but on my mid-afternoon walk they were easy to navigate.
Former site of Shaheen Sundries: Neighborhood Corner Store, 604 Ellis Road NW
Made it! Again, no one else was out walking that I could observe.
I tried during these audits to put myself in the (literal) shoes of pedestrians with characteristics other than mine. It would have been easier to do that had there been actual pedestrians to observe, but perhaps it was too cold. Really, though, chilly weather is no obstacle in a truly walkable city. The infrastructure is there, for the most part; now all we need are the walkable destinations.
They were there for the deals at the Marion Wal-Mart
Even frigid temperatures could not deter this devotee of #BlackFridayParking, Strong Towns' annual photographic survey of excess parking. Cultural devotion to ensuring drivers have an easy (and free or cheap) time storing the cars wherever they go has created a profligate use of land. Case in point: I went to a bar with some coworkers the day before Thanksgiving. It's a small building, 1800 square feet. Do you know how many parking spaces would fit in that building? Ten. That's all. So you can just imagine how many alternative uses we're foregoing with just one single megaparking lot.
Northwest section of the lot, 9 a.m.
This year's observance of #blackfridayparking took me to the Wal-Mart at the edge of Marion, or what used to be the edge of Marion, at the intersection of US151 and SR13. Built in 2005, it is the most newest of our metro's three Super Centers. There were a lot of people shopping there, and a lot of cars parked, and yet, as busy as it was, huge swaths of the lot went unoccupied. I'd guesstimate it might have been 55 percent full.
View from McDonald's
Northeast edge
Marion has grown quickly, more than doubling its population since 1990. More recently they have reconfigured traffic to enhance their Uptown area, and are engaged in writing a comprehensive plan for the next 25 years. For thirty years, though, their growth was an explosion of suburban development, much of it along Business Route 151, which runs from this intersection through the center of town into Cedar Rapids, where it becomes 1st Avenue East. So for about two miles, it seems like the edge of town, because the edge has moved ever-outward as the town has grown.
Hy-Vee Grocery Store, 3600 10th Avenue. Maybe 75 percent full at 9:30 a.m.
Average daily traffic counts along this stretch are 16700 across 151/13, 13000 above 50th St, 11700 between 50th and 44th, and 14400 between 44th and 35th; after a roundabout routes traffic onto 6th Avenue, 7th Avenue still carries 5600 approaching 26th Street.
Auto-Zone, 1055 Linden Drive. Last picture I took before my camera rebelled.
I walked along BR 151 to a coffee appointment in Uptown. It really gives you a sense of how human scale is lost in auto-centric development, in that I could walk five minutes and feel as though I was getting nowhere. It's difficult to convey in photographs, particularly since my phone rebelled against the cold at this point--it was about 15 degrees, and windy--and refused to come out of its shell until we were safely inside the coffee shop.
Best I could do: Google Earth screenshot looking east from 31st Street
As Marion undertakes its new comprehensive plan, they may or may not try to diversify this route. There certainly is a lot of parking along the way...
Screenshot from Marion 2045 page, showing 26th to 44th Streets
Screenshot from Marion 2045 page, showing area around Wal-Mart and 151/13 intersection
...which arguably is a bigger issue than whatever's going on at Wal-Mart.
Spending land that could be productive and interesting on parking lots seems irrational to me. But so does waiting ten cars deep at a drive through, and I saw that at both Starbucks and Dunkin today. So do all the people huddled under blankets in the long line outside Da Bin consignment store. There is clearly much I don't understand, which keeps your humble blogger extra-humble.
2317: One of many smokeshops on the road, used to be a bookstore
I've gone a bit off-script for this year's celebration of #BlackFridayParking. Strong Towns has promoted this event since the mid-10s as a way of highlighting the high costs to cities of zoning regulations that mandate large commercial parking lots (Abramson 2023). Past Black Fridays have taken me to the parking lots of big-box stores on our city's outer edge, and to the vast parking lots all too close to our city center.
Amidst all the giddiness and photography, I've come to the conclusion that, in Cedar Rapids anyway, the problem is not the zoning code. Our giant Wal-Marts and Targets have parking lots even bigger than the code requires, because land is cheap here, customers expect it, and the city is designed in such a way that 90+ of people are going to drive to shop anyway.
Still empty in '23: former K-Mart parking lot, 16th Av SW, November 2017
The problem on 16th is not that even large Black Friday crowds couldn't fill the gigantic parking lots, but that there are no crowds at all. (That year I was accompanied by "the other Dr. Nesmith." I don't know whether the excitement was too much for her, but she hasn't been tempted by #BlackFridayParking since.)
This year I followed a similar impulse to Mt. Vernon Road SE. This historic corridor is getting some love from the city in the form on an action plan. Alas, its internal contradictions mean some of its goals are going to have to give way, probably to faster vehicle traffic.
The Mount Vernon Road action plan covers 10th to 44th Streets.
4035: At the east end of the plan area, acres of parking at the Mt. Vernon Road Hy-Vee
The executive summary describes the challenge on page 19:
The Mt. Vernon Road corridor includes a wide variety of land uses including a neighborhood hardware store, a large grocery store, several gas/convenience stores, banks and credit unions, professional offices, restaurants, bars, and various specialty, variety, drug, auto parts, auto repair, and discount goods stores. The corridor also includes schools, churches, a residential care center, a fire station, and a cemetery.
2405: Used to be a pharmacy
However, the dominate [sic] land use is single family residential with just a few multi-family residential properties sprinkled throughout the corridor. There are several quick-serve and fast food restaurants but few sit-down style restaurants. There are vacant properties along the corridor and some occupied commercial sites that are dated and/or in need of renovation and maintenance. There are also several retail uses that are typically not considered neighborhood friendly including tobacco shops and liquor stores.
Because that's the kind of commerce wide fast streets get!
2663: Used to be a Greek restaurant
2700: Used to be an Italian restaurant
Unsurprisingly, public input sessions on the action plan revealed desires for small retail shops, redeveloping vacant lots, fewer "less neighborhood friendly uses," more separation between residential and commercial areas, turn lanes, and slower truck traffic. Bike lanes were nixed, as bicycling on this road is unsafe and slows car traffic (p. 19).
Word clouds generated by Mt. Vernon Road corridor public meetings
902 28th St: Cute shop for a walkable area
3605: Another vacant property, whose potential changes on a walkable street
The public's desires are reflected in the plan's goals (p 9): (1)
promote new
retail development and redevelopment along the corridor; (2) encourage
neighborhood scale and neighborhood friendly uses; (3) improve traffic
circulation and safety; (4) increase walkability and safety for
pedestrians and cyclists. I expect the immediate pressure to improve
traffic circulation to render the rest of this admirable list
unfeasible. I hope I can explain why.
1841: Neighborhood retail lost to road widening
1901: Neighborhood retail lost to road widening
Neighborhood retail (goals 1 and 2) relies on walkability (goal #4), but that would require Mt. Vernon Road to become smaller and slower (goal #3b but not #3a). The stickler, as the plan's authors admit (p. 11), is that Mount Vernon Road has been developed into an arterial, the collector road for the entire southeast side. The authors claim it has too much traffic already--23000 according to the plan text, 18000 according to the state's average daily traffic counts--for its four lanes, and there are too many driveways for comfort as well.
3303: Even small parking lots are between the (franchise) shops and the sidewalk
Since it is pretty much the only through street in that part of town, there's no reasonable alternative for truck traffic.
3025: More franchises by parking lots
So the road will be reconfigured to restrict left turns across traffic at 15th and 19th Streets; it will end in a roundabout at 10th Street; parking lot access will where possible be redirected to side streets; and cyclists will be directed to alternative routes on parallel streets.
Approaching downtown, new left-turn lane onto 15th Street, creating more distance between core neighborhoods on either side
Cars and trucks will move more swiftly, past locations that could have supported neighborhood friendly uses. (See Herriges 2019 on how arterials work, and don't work.)
1420: Gargantuan c-store, nominally in Wellington Heights
This is the point where I should be telling you what the city should be doing to fix this. I confess I'm at a loss. What are we trying to build here? It's not a downtown, where we go for density, mix the uses, slow the cars, and ignore the parking-obsessed. It's not the suburbs, either, nor is it quite a highway. It's become an awkward mix of all three, so that anything you do to fix an immediate issue with Mt. Vernon Road--narrow it, widen it, add pedestrian infrastructure--is going to make something else worse.
3401: Vernon Village used to have a small grocery and a French restaurant, which then became a bakery/cafe. Now it might be a ghost kitchen?
(I would like to see bus service along the entirety of Mt. Vernon Road, just shooting straight from downtown to maybe Bertram Road and back. Currently, the circuitous Route 2 travels Mt. Vernon Road eastbound from 19th to 42nd, but not westbound. I don't know that it will fix anything detailed above, help the emergence of cute shops, cut down on vehicle speeds, or make walking safer, but it's curious that this has never been done.)
2714: Another auto parts store, next to another vacant building
So, this year my #BlackFridayParking thoughts have wandered far from the subject of parking. But as we see here, excess parking is more than some unproductive government regulation. It is a product of the problematic way we build towns, and how we get around, just as it makes those problems worse. The result is stroads like this one. The parking lots are just the most obvious symptom, or maybe #2 behind the uninspiring commerce.
2000: Used to be an arts center, before that an elementary school
The public comments that informed the Mt. Vernon Road Action plan are not wrong, just naive. It's natural for us to want more of the things we enjoy, with fewer
consequences. Why can't we have smoother traffic flow and plenteous parking, at cute shops, all at a neighborhood scale? Because, beloved readers, in this vale of tears, cars compete with
everything else for space, and the easier we make it for cars to move
the less likely they are to stop, to shop or for any other reason.
2711: Big pharmacy with bigger parking lot
Same building, different side
The
more room we make for cars in the form of parking lots, the less room
there is for anything at a human/neighborhood scale. Anyone
who's paid attention as Mt. Vernon Road has gotten wider and faster
knows this. That's not politics, it's physics.
26th St: One of several cute dead-end streets off Mt. Vernon Road Access becomes more difficult as the road gets faster
18th St: From here to downtown, access is limited by a barrier
Strong Towns video, "Are Parking Lots Ruining Your City" (15:40):
