Since the modern Olympic Games were revived in 1896, no city has ever hosted swimming events in an urban river. Too poopy. But Paris, as we talked about, hopes to be the first. Starting on July 30, the Seine is scheduled to host the swimming portion of the triathlon competitions.
Except, it will depend on water quality. Today's training sessions (scheduled for Sunday, July 28) were cancelled because water tests showed that the Seine is currently below acceptable standards. This is due to heavy rain over the last few days, which I guess overloaded the city's storm network.
So what is clear is that -- 36 years after then-Mayor Jacques Chirac first promised to clean up the river -- the city has only been able to successfully achieve this, sometimes. It's not an easy task.
According to Bloomberg, the clean-up efforts have already cost €1.4 billion. This was spent on doing things like constructing a 50,000 m3 holding basin (about the size of 12 Olympic-sized pools) under the Gare D'Austerlitz. This now holds storm overflow during heavy rain events, in lieu of it going into the Seine.
But this doesn't provide any guarantees as evidenced by today's cancelled training sessions. Presumably, it just makes it less likely for overflow stormwater to get dumped into the Seine. So a cynic might ask: Why bother with all of this?
Well, for one thing, swimming in a river in the middle of a major global city is just plain cool. Look at how the Swiss do it. But another reason could be that you want to create one of the greenest cities on the planet. And if that's the case, then seeing athletes swimming in the Seine is a pretty powerful image.
It shows progress.
I've never been to Nashville, but I hear it's a pretty good city for music. According to this new report from PennPraxis, titled the Nashville Independent Venues Study, the city has 252 venues that showcase live music. And more than 100 of them are solely dedicated to music.
This gives Nashville one of the densest clusters of live music venues per capita, anywhere in the world. I also remember reading somewhere that the majority of venture funded startups in the city are in the music industry. So Nashville has a real music ecosystem going.
Of course, when you're really good at something it can create a dual-edged sword. In the case of Nashville, this success has led to growth, more bachelor/bachelorette parties being hosted in the city and, ultimately, developers wanting to build lots of new things.
Right now, the city seems to be grappling with how best to balance this growth against the preservation of its live music scene. And that's what this new report is focused on.
The minimum size of a parking space in Toronto is 2.6 m wide x 5.6 m long. (It can change based on other factors, but this is all you need to know for today's post.) This works out to 14.56 square meters or ~157 square feet in area for a typical spot.
Building a parking space of this size in an underground or structured parking garage is very expensive. I have seen the former cost over $200k per space once you include everything else that goes along with building below-grade parking.
However, this opinion piece reminded me that if you'd like to rent an equivalent area on the streets of Toronto, you can do that for a lot less. If it's your first vehicle permit and you have no on-site parking where you live, the 2024 cost is $22.19 (plus HST) per month.
That works out to a monthly land rent of approximately $0.14 per square foot.
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