I've been looking at some images, videos and concepts from a city Jacksonville is developing stronger ties with - Curitiba, Brazil. It has sparked many ideas and I'm working on a "Learning from..." In the meantime, check out this video clip of "Rua das Floras" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3VaV2EomIA&feature=related (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3VaV2EomIA&feature=related)(cops on the Segways cracked me up)
Could Laura Street and Phillip Randolph could be made EXCLUSIVELY pedestrian? From the Landing opening, Lamp posts, little shops, and trees/flowerbeds right down the middle of the street all the way up to Hemming.
Taking it a step further, what if SEVERAL downtown streets were made exclusively pedestrian? Instead of thinking - how can we beautify/enhance this little plot here and there, what if entire streets were turned into walking parks?
Thoughts?
That would be awesome. The beginning, i think, would be a 'mall' of sorts with a/some city block(s) divided with a ped-only walk, with retail/restaurants/etc facing the walk, and still the street. This way you could have the normal roads accessible to trafficking/transit, and still be able to carry on a walkable environment outside the 'mall' so that people don't just go into the 'mall' and then never go outside of it to the other parts of downtown. I have often pondered this, it is a good idea i think, but i am not sure how we would be able to convince the city to stop off a whole section of road. Maybe a larger project as mentioned above, or a cough courthouse cough. There would have to be a large amount of walkers, better more walkers than cars, or at least to the point where the walkers could classify the autos as a nuisance. Another great thing about ped-only walks is the shade!...depending on how narrow it is. To me it's a win-win...win.
if i strayed from your ideas feel free to slap me.
That kind of setting is great, when there's lots of shops to have the business to draw the crowds.
Pedestrian streets don't do well in cities that don't have great population density. Many of these effectively killed several american downtown retail districts in the late 1970s/80s. Tampa's Franklin Street Mall is a great example of one. Today, many cities have reopened their pedestrian malls back to automobile traffic to give retailers more visual exposure.
The mayor who implemented this project literally changed the street in one weekend, because local business were being a pain in the butt about it. Afterwards, they were so excited about it they asked him to EXTEND the project further up the street!!!
Good point about population density.
I would love to see this happen but I agree, the people need to come first. This subject reminds me of the city I was born in, Louisville, doing just this with the development of Fourth Street Live. But before that was completed and open to the public they already had established a decent sized community, roughly 1,000 occupied condo units back as early as the late 90's.
Raleigh reopened their pedestrian mall.
Learning from Raleigh, NC: Fayetteville Street Renaissance (http://www.metrojacksonville.com/content/view/419/118/)
The activity at street level of the autombiles is important to streets which are "alive", presuming the automobile has it's correct place within the heirarchy of the street.
I wouldn't suggest a pedestrian only street for downtown Jacksonville.
Yeah, a pedestrian street wouldn't work in Jacksonville any time soon. Pedestrian-only streets are really awesome, but you need some serious population density to make them work.
Ithaca, NY has the Ithaca Commons - one of the few 60s/70s pedestrian malls that actually survived. It's a really great place, but even it is starting to have serious struggles. It survived for so many years because it was one of the few places to actually shop in such a small college town. But in recent years, big box stores finally moved into the marketplace, and they totally KILLED the traditional retail.
The Commons is still alive, but it sort of transitioned into a "festival marketplace" type environment. It's more focused on restaurants, college bars, and novelty retail.
I guess the point is that even in the type of town where pedestrian malls are most likely to thrive (a very dense college town with strong support for local retail), the pedestrain mall still has problems.
These places are common in Europe but they have a far greater number of people living adjacent to them and within easy walking distance. So, it can be a good idea but there must be the prerequisite of residents nearby first. This is why it usually fails when tried in American downtowns as most US downtowns do not have a lot of nearby residents.
population density may or may not be a reason why shutting streets down for pedestian use only usually fails to take hold. In Chicago State St in the loop area was converted into a pedestrian and bus mall, it just didn't work as planned and the street reverted to traditional usage. In NYC Fulton St in Brooklyn became a mall and seems to work well and Nassau st in Manhattan is shut down at lunch time and that too seems to work.
In Jax the level of street pedestrian traffic doesn't warrant any permanant closings, what could be tried is temporary closure for special events like the monthly art walk