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Originally Posted by Hali87
I would venture a guess that this was the point. Why would you try to make a street that "nobody really cares about" into a vibrant pedestrian area? The point is that it's already quite walkable, and is one of the only commercial areas in Moncton (THE only?) that is. I would guess that the councilor visited Montreal, saw St. Catherine St. during the summer, thought "it would be fantastic if Moncton had something like this", and identified Main St. as the only street in Moncton really resembling St. Catherine in any way.
In theory it could work - how hard would it actually be to shift traffic onto a parallel route, say St. George St, or Gordon/Queen?
However I think it's a misguided idea at the moment, because people would likely have to drive and park downtown just to enjoy the pedestrian-only street, which kind of defeats the purpose. If people could walk there, it would be different. It would also make a bit more sense if there were more stuff to walk to in the area surrounding Main, especially to the south. It might be interesting to close a few blocks of the street to traffic for a weekend (or even a week) during the summer, but I don't really see the point of closing it for the whole summer.
In many parts of the country the attitude of "Streets aren't 'for cars', they're 'for people'" is seeing a big resurgence. Just out of curiosity, do any of you agree with this statement?
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I have nothing against the concept of pedestrianizing the downtown. It just has to be done in a smart way. As Sebastien Arcand of the city planning department said - "creating pedestrian malls does not create pedestrians".
One thing I know for sure is that the axis of Moncton is east/west and not north/south. Most traffic passes through downtown in an east/west direction. This traffic flow is serviced by Mountain Rd, St George St, Main St and Assomption Blvd. Of these four arteries,
the only one that passes completely through the core from Moncton West to Dieppe is Main Street. Main Street is therefore the most important street in downtown Moncton for getting into and out of the core. It would be shear lunacy to barricade this street and convert it to pedestrian use only. The only thing this would accomplish would be to throw up yet another obstacle to casual visitors from the suburbs actually visiting the downtown. Instead the suburbanites would just hop onto Wheeler Blvd and head to Champlain Place instead. Heck, the parking is even free and plentiful at Champlain too!! Why the fuck go to downtown anyway?
To have a pedestrianized space in the core, it needs to be accessible which means that car loving Monctonians would have to be able to drive down there and find readily available non-bootable parking. The pedestrian space would need to have attractions to draw people in from the burbs. Throwing up a few concrete barriers on either end of Main Street and hoping for the best is not a solution - it is a recipe for a disaster.......
What I would prefer would be to do everything possible to encourage development and densification south of Main Street, down to and including Assomption Blvd and incorporating the Riverfront Park into a grand vision of a healthy, urban and vital downtown core. This area should include condos and apartments (to encourage pedestrian traffic) as well as a mix of commercial and retail space as well as hotels and restaurants. It would be nice to see a cluster of 8-12 storey mixed use buildings in this area - buildings with a street presence and interesting storefronts and street level cafes and bistros. Since this area is currently a wasteland, it would be easy to plan a grand new downtown community from the ground up and
include appropriate pedestrian spaces here. This is where the city should concentrate it's efforts in making the downtown more pedestrian friendly, not in throwing up temporary concrete barriers on Main Street.
The T&T had an editorial in the paper today complaining that the city staffers were getting "uppity" and should learn their place, and that decision making should be left in the hands of city council. This may be true, but
in this case, city council had better listen carefully to what the planning department had to say. Pedestrianizing Main Street is a bad, BAD,
BAD idea!!!!
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For the few events it gets shut down, that is great but not all summer. Although it would require some work and planning, I would be OK with turning Main street into a one way for a portion of it (Assumption/Lewis to Lutz). As long as it's planned properly. Maybe even have the one way with only one lane (and turning lanes) in order to increase the street patio size. The one way would make it easier for pedestrians. Make it a little safer than the status quo.
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