Quote:
Originally Posted by Evergrey
There was a failed pedestrian mall on the very street you propose a new one... Penn Avenue... a few miles east in East Liberty.
The street was converted to a pedestrian mall in the 1960s, promptly destroyed the East Liberty business district, and was opened to automobile traffic again in the 1990s at the beginning of the neighborhood's turnaround.
The concept of a "pedestrian mall" free from cars seems very pleasant... utopian... but it doesn't work outside of very niche circumstances.
The pedestrian mall movement took hold in the 1960s-70s... an era featuring some of the worst urban planning. Most pedestrian malls have reverted back to automobile streets. Today's concepts are for "pedestrian programming" (such as when the Roberto Clemente bridge shuts down to cars for special events)... which is much more flexible. Still... I would not support closing the Strip off to cars on Saturdays... that chaotic jumble of cars and pedestrians is what makes the district so successful.
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/news/2013/07/25/16th-street-among-a-rare-breed-most.html?page=all
http://downtownfresnoblog.com/2013/12/04/the-failed-experiment-of-the-american-pedestrian-mall/ |
Thanks for the response. This is definitely an interesting topic. I have been googling since your last reply and it has made for interesting reading.
One thing to note is that the Penn Circle project came from an era when pretty much everything the URA did was a disaster. They managed to bulldoze much of the Hill District, North Side and East Liberty. The goal was to create something similar to a shopping Mall and attract shoppers to a neighborhood that was already clearly on the decline. To accomplish this they tore down much of the neighborhood.
This was an era of incredibly poor urban planning. People recognized the trend of urban decay in inner cities, but their solutions weren't much better. Hopefully we have learned from those mistakes.
Note that my momentary mention of a possible pedestrian mall on a few blocks of Penn in no way resembles what was attempted with Penn Circle. Rather than tearing down hundreds of buildings and attempting to reverse a declining neighborhood, the Penn avenue pedestrian street would involve no demolition. It is would also be to better serve a healthy business district, not to attempt and recreate one that was probably irreversibly on the decline.
Also of interest is the term that we use, pedestrian "mall". The failed American projects from a few decades ago were an attempt to stem the decay of inner cities as people flocked to the suburbs and indoor shopping malls. Hence the term "mall". They thought the solution was to model the street after an indoor mall. Whether they attempted to create a "mall" or not, inner cities were still on the decline.
In areas of the world where pedestrian malls are successful, they are called pedestrians "streets" rather than "malls". That seems like more than a semantic difference to me. The successful pedestrian areas aren't thought of as creating a new thing unlike the surrounding neighborhood. But rather they are viewed as simply one version of a street that can be used wherever it would benefit the business district and people who frequent the neighborhood.
One thing we can agree upon is that there was some horrible urban planning in 20th century America. Not everything was badly designed, but many big mistakes were made.
What I take away from that is not that every idea was bad but rather that we operated rather naively and with disregard to what has worked for centuries. While they failed by tearing down large swaths of the city to create pedestrian shopping malls in declining and blighted neighborhoods, I don't think that means we should view all pedestrian oriented streets as bad.
I also agree about completely pedestrian streets as being only suitable for niche areas. With thousands of streets in Pittsburgh, is it possible that at least few blocks are that niche?
In my opinion, dodging cars on Saturday morning isn't what makes the Strip successful. Instead, it is the pedestrian bustle. It is a lively area where people come to mix and feel alive.
Again, thanks for the discussion. It is exciting to see that the Pittsburgh development thread is one of the most active on SSP. Debate like this is what leads to successful urban planning.
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I really Think that preserving the terminal is the right way to go. I think Buncher has a up hill battle convincing the majority that the development can only be successful by destroying part of a building that is really the anchor of the whole district.
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