In 1959, Kalamazoo, MI, was the first city to respond to suburban shopping malls by turning downtown streets into pedestrian malls. Since then, more than 100 cities have followed Kalamazoo’s example.
In the vast majority of cases, the malls proved to be a disaster for local businesses. Department stores and other shops were boarded up or replaced by low-rent thrift stores or antique malls. The planners who created the malls typically refused to admit failure, and it took decades for the cities to reopen the streets to autos.
The few success stories were in university towns like Boulder or resort towns that already have high rates of pedestrianship. In other words, malls don’t create pedestrians, but if the pedestrians are already there, you might make a mall work.
A special class of mall is the transit mall, which allows buses as well as pedestrians. Denver has one that is considered successful; Minneapolis has one that is not. Portland has one that is a real downer.
Installed in the 1970s, Portland’s mall shuttered many of the shops and businesses located on it. Major department stores that had entrances on more than one street locked their doors facing the mall so their real customers could enter on the other streets.
This can be especially beneficial for teens who may become distracted when navigate to this site viagra samples taking courses at school with friends present. There is a specific dosage pattern that generic tadalafil prices is to be followed. purchase generic viagra In some circumstances, the landlord might also be found liable in court if the victim works with a skilled dog bite lawyer. These churches, which present as bona fide Christian organizations, are often guilty of the misrepresentation and deceit practiced by some of the better-known cults. super viagra online In the 1990s, Portland’s transit agency, Tri-Met, proposed to create a new mall for light-rail trains. Downtown business rose up in protest. Yes, we want light rail, said bookstore, restaurant, and other shop owners, but if you put it on our street, we will move.
So Tri-Met decided to lay the light-rail tracks on the bus mall. That infuriated transit supporters because the mixture of buses and light rail would actually have a lower capacity for moving transit riders than the bus mall alone — and planners expect to reach the new capacity limit in just a few years. But light rail is not about transit, it is about manipulating land use.
Now that rail construction on the mall is nearing completion — trains are due to run on it in about a year — a debate has begun on whether light rail will reinvigorate the businesses on the mall. Of course, there are the optimists, who think the large numbers of people riding trains will boost restaurants and other businesses. (But remember, the actual capacity will be lower than the bus mall.)
Then there is Rick Potestio, who calls the light-rail trains “a continuously moving steel wall” that will deaden the streets by limiting pedestrian crossings. “It’s going to be a disaster,” says another consultant.
The reporter for this Portland Tribune article interviewed a restaurant owner who hoped that the light-rail customers would make up for the parking that will be lost when light rail uses an extra lane of traffic. But he also worried that people would hop of the light rail, do drug deals, and then hop back on — creating an unsavory environment for restaurant goers.
The Antiplanner will be watching this issue and will report on it in the future.
http://www.churchstmarketplace.com/
Though ROT, I’m surprised that you would be against people doing drug deals, since this is pure capitalism, regardless of how they travel.
I’ve passed through exurban mall parking lots and have observed drug deals take place too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Mall
Let’s also not forget about this mall too.
The most telling part is the fact that it took Perfectly Planned Portland’s Planners 30 years to admit their failure.
Typical of the planning “profession”
Thanks
JK
The problem with cities. planners and transit agencies planning malls, is if they fail the taxpayers are on the hook and the planners go on to plan other projects. That the taxpayers are on the hook for.
If the private property owner failed, he would be out of business.
It would be helpful to see some photos of the area in question.
Also regarding “planners”, these are the same people that “new urbanists” don’t like, because they created sprawl.
Planning is a double edge sword.
The problem with cities. planners and transit agencies planning malls, is if they fail the taxpayers are on the hook and the planners go on to plan other projects. That the taxpayers are on the hook for. If the private property owner failed, he would be out of business.
Thank God the taxpayers never have to bailout businesses.
The problem with cities. planners and transit agencies planning malls, is if they fail the taxpayers are on the hook and the planners go on to plan other projects.
The only way this argumentation works is if you believe the premise that highly educated professionals don’t learn from their mistakes. Maybe the less educated think everyone is like them and nobody learns from their mistakes (or can identify when they made one). Of course, when your identity is tied to your ideology, you’ll believe anything that doesn’t sully your self-identity.
At any rate, the reason most pedestrian zones have failed is likely due to America’s autocentricity – that is: Americans are car-dependent.
Many built environments in America prevent the choice of being free to use other modes of transportation, so folks aren’t used to walking (cue the charts showing rise in obesity in Murrica).
DS
The only way this argumentation works is if you believe the premise that highly educated professionals don’t learn from their mistakes
I think “mistakes” is ultimately the wrong word. Humans don’t have perfect knowledge or foresight. We don’t always know what the results will be of many of our actions. Thus, we try things out, see how well they work, and then make adjustments. It’s a continuous, iterative process of experimentation, along the lines of John Dewey’s “pragmatism”. I think the most reasonable expectation for any given action is that it will “work” in some ways, and “not work” in some other ways, and I don’t think the presence of the latter automatically qualifies as a mistake.
That’s a good point D4P, and thank you for the clarification and context to my comment.
DS
But he also worried that people would hop of the light rail, do drug deals, and then hop back on
If drugs were decriminalized (and I’d bet the vast majority of voluntary transactions in the drug market in downtown Portland involve cannabis), then this wouldn’t be an issue. Government has no right telling me what I can put in my body.
Leaving the drug situation side, Portland’s transit mall looks like it’s going to be a real mess. There were criticisms before construction that the plan would cause chaos by combining cars, rail, and buses. But proceed they planners did; they’d spent too much planning to digress. I agree with the early criticism. Head on down to the nearly completed mall and you’ll see the confusing configuration that’ll trap tourists and cause collisions.
Then this isn’t really a question of mode, but the poor effectuation of an idea, perhaps.
Since ROT is not known for being honest.
Then this isn’t really a question of mode, but the poor effectuation of an idea, perhaps.
IMHO, the scale for success of a ped zone is far larger than the parcels of the zone itself; that is: one must promote freedom from single-mode transportation across a much larger area for these to work. Places that value transportation choices have a better chance of a ped zone succeeding.
So the effectuation scale needs to be wider. We already know how to do this, as we did it prior to WWII, and as rationalitate preaches, eliminating single-use Euclidean zoning helps us get there.
DS
Antiplanner wrote:
“Installed in the 1970s, Portland’s mall shuttered many of the shops and businesses located on it. Major department stores that had entrances on more than one street locked their doors facing the mall so their real customers could enter on the other streets.”
That’s really the problem. Some people still think that cars go shopping. In reality, people go shopping. So, if you pedestrianise an area, and it attracts pedestrian activity, this is where the money is. Incidentally, the fewer cars someone has, the more spare money they tend to have, and the more often that they go shopping. Cyclists are better customers for most stores than car drivers.
Antiplanner wrote:
“In the vast majority of cases, the malls proved to be a disaster for local businesses. Department stores and other shops were boarded up or replaced by low-rent thrift stores or antique malls. The planners who created the malls typically refused to admit failure, and it took decades for the cities to reopen the streets to autos.”
Yet, this doesn’t happen in most places which are pedestrianised. Most town and city centres in the UK and the EU are pedestrianised, and this has boosted the local economies. A good pedestrianised design follows the three golden rules.
1. Access for freight is maintained, even if the deliveries happen only at certain times.
2. Access for cars is maintained. A multistorey car park enables car access close to the mall, but not along it. In smaller scheme, maybe just a small town square, a small number of short-stay car parking spaces are provided when one part is pedestrianised, and the other part is left alone.
3. The location is carefully chosen so as not to include large warehouse stores (including supermarkets) which need close-by car parking to deal with heavy and bulky loads. Also the location doesn’t include motoring shops and facilities.
“Rick Potestio, a local architect who has advised the city on transportation projects, calls the trains “a continuously moving steel wall,†that will cut off the streets and overwhelm any attempts to enliven them.”
This is complete nonsense. The light rail will have a service frequency no more often than every ten minutes (for good technical reasons). Try timing this. It’s hardly a ‘continuously moving steel wall’. How does this gentleman think that trams work in Europe? Do citizens of Brussels/Sheffield/Amsterdam get confronted by ‘a continuously moving steel wall’?
“Galbreath says the interweaving cars, buses and trains will make the transit mall streets south and north of Burnside decidedly unfriendly for pedestrians.”
I’m trying to imagine an interweaving tram. So far, zip.
Seriously. It would be better for Portland to remove all of the buses from the mall, and use light rail. Mixing transit with pedestrians is one of the times that light rail is far superior to buses. Light rail follows a well-defined path, which makes it much easier to landscape the mall, and which mean that pedestrians know where not to stand. Light rail also has other safety devices (anti-crush guards) that make them much safer too. They would do better to ban cars and buses, put in multi-storey car parking (one end, other end, both ends, behind the mall), and run a tram from the parking along the mall. Maybe a classic streetcar.
They also need to build a cafe culture, with chairs and tables on the sidewalk.
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/modalpages/2674.aspx
Interesting some how the Croydon tram comes to mind.
The only way this argumentation works is if you believe the premise that highly educated professionals don’t learn from their mistakes
————
The best way to learn from your mistakes are to pay back the taxpayers for your blunders.
Not to repeat them at the taxpayer’s expense.
Deregulation partly to blame for Titanic’s shoddy construction (and subsequent sinking)…?
http://www.crooksandliars.com/node/23274
craig wrote:
“The best way to learn from your mistakes are to pay back the taxpayers for your blunders.
Not to repeat them at the taxpayer’s expense.”
Though that can be a Catch 22, even for tax payers.
Not to repeat them at the taxpayer’s expense.
Haha. Good one. And private people making mistakes that cost the commonweal – they’ll pay us back too? Sure.
One must love that certain small-minority ideology, if only for the comedic value it gives us, every day.
DS
Dan said:
The problem with cities. planners and transit agencies planning malls, is if they fail the taxpayers are on the hook and the planners go on to plan other projects.
JK:
Correct. In Portland the planners never look at completed projects to see if they worked.
Looking to see if it was a success is a no-win for the planner class, so they don’t do it. They just claim success and move on to the next expensive, taxpayer funded, failure.
How many of Portland’s earliest shopping malls still exist? The earliest shopping malls in New Zealand were modelled on the early ’60s US design. Essentiall blocks of shops around a central square, surrounded by carparks. They’ve all lost trade to the newer fully enclosed malls. It seems shoppers prefer to travel in their climate contolled cars from their climate controlled homes to these newer climate shopping malls. The shopping experience is so much better when you can ignore the weather. Put one these new lightweight clear rooves over the pedetrians malls and watch shoppers come back in droves.
Curious that inner city retailers always blame changes to the roads for their decline in tradesince the 1960s. If it’s not pedestrian malls it’s one streets or bus lanes or clearways.
…one way streets…
“That’s really the problem. Some people still think that cars go shopping. In reality, people go shopping. So, if you pedestrianize an area, and it attracts pedestrian activity, this is where the money is. Incidentally, the fewer cars someone has, the more spare money they tend to have, and the more often that they go shopping. Cyclists are better customers for most stores than car drivers.” — Francis King
Any sources? My experience is when I drive, I buy more. When I bike I concentrate on buying very little to make sure I can fit it on my bike and at that just what I had planned. That’s actually better for my wallet in the long run but doesn’t lent me to spending more money.
Test.
“Any sources? My experience is when I drive, I buy more. When I bike I concentrate on buying very little to make sure I can fit it on my bike and at that just what I had planned. That’s actually better for my wallet in the long run but doesn’t lent me to spending more money. ”
Yes I have, but every time I try to insert it into my text, the post fails.
JimKarlock wrote:
“JK:
Correct. In Portland the planners never look at completed projects to see if they worked.
Looking to see if it was a success is a no-win for the planner class, so they don’t do it. They just claim success and move on to the next expensive, taxpayer funded, failure. ”
Yes. It does seem a bit pointless to do a transport prediction, and then not to see if it was correct. They did a post-built report on the famous/infamous Newbury Bypass, and discovered many interesting discrepancies between the prediction and the result. Not the least was that traffic was moving via the bypass from a much wider area than was originally modelled.
JimKarlock wrote:
“Correct. In Portland the planners never look at completed projects to see if they worked.
Looking to see if it was a success is a no-win for the planner class, so they don’t do it. They just claim success and move on to the next expensive, taxpayer funded, failure.”
Sorry, though isn’t a form of subjective objectivism?
Hey I’ve seen “planners” do dumb things my self, like highways to no where.
JK, context might not be important to you, though it is important to me.
http://www.commissionersam.com/photos/uncategorized/1924map.jpeg