No pedestrian streets in large US cities -- why not?

You guys are superior to us in couple of things.

I'm not sure if those pedestrian streets can really be described with the word "superior" btw.

It's not as if there was some Middle-Aged European who stood up and said "Hey, let's build really high-density inner cities that will be really cool by the time the car has been invented!".
It's just that, for the 600-900 years before 1900 or so, European citizens had to hide behind their city walls. There really wasn't an alternative to "dense inner city". Any Medieval European coming up with the idea to build a really nice suburb with lots of room and space for everybody, well... he would be dead and his house burned down within a generation.

Right now, I think that the net result of those walls is really nice, but it's not as if we were ever actually aiming for it, it's more something that we stumbled upon, so claiming credit for it seems a bit odd to me.

Not all pedestrian zones in Europe are within medieval cities. The first one in Germany was created actually in a post war quarter.

The Favoritenstraße pedestrian zone in Vienna lies in a Gründerzeit quarter from the late 19th or very early 20th century. Nothing medieval about it.

The city development area of the Flugfeld Aspern in the very north eastern periphery of Vienna, a from the scratch completely newly constructed quarter is planned to have as central element a pedestrian street.


Of course old towns are predestined for pedestrian zones, I consider it however a fallacy to limit that concept to them.

Sorry, never heard of them. :)

Of course pedestrian zones aren't limited to medieval quarters. It's just that it's exactly those quarters that were, literally, made for pedestrian zoning. Which gives the cities with those quarters quite an advantage when it comes to creating said zones (which was, kinda, my point :))

The entire quarter Flugfeld Aspern does not exist so far, but the masterplan already exists, and it sets a high priority on pedestrian infrastructure, including a pedestrian shopping street with an integrated tram track.

Its hard to find pics of the Favoritenstraße on the net as tourists are a rare sight there. Here one I could find:



This pedestrian street was enlarged only 3 years ago btw. Its the center of the district Favoriten which is not even one of the central districts but already belonging to the Viennese periphery. (Even if its rather densely populated)

True, its an advantage, but its by far not a necessity.

I never said it was.....

Whats the point of pedestrian streets in the U.S. anyway? Lifestyle is based around the car. You would have to drive to get to the pedestrian street anyway.

the majority of European pedestrianised zones are built in streets realised in the 18th and 19th Century, thoroughfares at least as wide as two 4-horse carriages passing (which incidentally was wide enough to be adapted and overrun by the car), if not multiple lanes of such. To say that European pedestrianisation stumbled upon what was just a medieval reality dismisses the fact alot of these streets were intentionally turned from car to pedestrian not because it was easy to do or had historical precedent, but purely because the political will and foresight was there.

In the 50s, 60s, and 70s European centres were equally dominated by car culture as it was everywhere else.




Istanbul, the main streets:

At the beginning of the 20th century.



50's: Street opened to cars



Some years later the nostalgic tram line doesn't exist anymore, the area getting more unattractive. Buildings full of signs.


After 90's until today:
Several renovations and restorations. The tram line is back and buildings are rented to high prices again.

haha yah

based on the pics of europe etc shown in here as examples

it appears that there is a good supply of residents living above and close to the pedestrian streets which is a major help

something thas becoming popular here are "lifestyle" centres that are just malls that are made to look like streets but to get to them you need a car and most of them don't have a residential component although they may be surrounded by new developments - its just not the same

no pedestrian streets? what about Wall Street? Its a pedestrian only street in a huge city...

Apart from Wall Street, there are a bunch of other streets in downtown Manhattan that are pedestrian only. Don't need to look too hard...

the early 70's when the modern idea of pedestrian streets and urban malls came out was really the height of urban decay in the US. It was bad timing. Many that were built really made things worse because they uprooted the few existing businesses that were left.

When cities started to recover in the 1980's most cities followed the examples of cities like Portland and Denver with "transit malls" and one-way streets instead. Personally I think this idea is better because it gives people who don't want to walk some options like free buses/light rail.

Here is the streetscape in Portland that most normal-sized cities in the US have tried to copy

Source: http://world.nycsubway.org/us/portland/index.html

No one claimed that the US has no pedesrian zones. But look at it how many. I have read that Germany alone has many times more pedestrian zones than the entire USA.

And regarding Wall Street, when I visited that place it did not look like a street adopted with having pedestrians in mind but like a street where the cars had been banned for security reasons.
I think the South Street seaport area in NYC is a far better example of a lively pedestrian zone, even though I am not sure if there are still people living there in those renovated buildings.

I know that Stone St in the Financial Dist is also a pedistrian block with having tables outside on it.

New world, car-dependent. Although in Melbourne the car is often left behind at the train station or on the outskirts of the CBD. There are usually at least three or four groups of street performers in a single block - this street would otherwise fit four lanes of traffic (or two lanes of traffic, bike lanes and two lanes of parking) in addition to the pair of tram tracks, which is reserved for trams and emergency vehicles in the CBD.




Other streets like Little Bourke St probably have a lot to gain by removing cars too, perhaps on a part-time basis.


The CBD streets have generally been bypassed by other roads nearby because there is no place for through traffic in the CBD.

I love this pic, the whole feel of it is great. This totally sells the city for me.

just like here, most of our pedestrian streets once had cars, despite being built in the 18th and 19th centuries, and shopping streets are quite popular. In fact this year part of the town hall square turned into pedestrian, and immediately people started using it. the main shopping street is even one of the city's highlights, and the same happens in other middle-sized and large Portuguese cities. Shoppers even want to ban bicycles and dogs from the street.

Maybe the problem in large US-cities is because cities are too large and too widespread.

Here's an article on the subject from a San Fran newspaper in 1997:

(I cut out some of it, it was long. These paragraphs are the most interesting)

Chicago's State Street Mall Called Transit `Disaster'

Carl Nolte, Chronicle Staff Writer

Monday, November 24, 1997

(11-24) 04:00 PDT Chicago -- Mayor Willie Brown and environmental activists want to ban private cars on San Francisco's Market Street -- but in Chicago, at least, this is an idea whose time has come and gone.

Chicago turned nine blocks of State Street into a transit-only mall in 1979. The idea was a total flop -- ``a disaster,'' Chicago planners say -- and the street was refurbished at a cost of $24 million and opened to cars again last year.

``We walked into it with our eyes wide open,'' said G. Brent Minor, vice president for business development at the La Salle Bank, ``and it was just a mistake, an absolute mistake.

``God, don't let them do that in San Francisco.'' [an error occurred while processing this directive] State is one of those great American streets, like Broadway. Or it was, anyway. It is lined with huge old buildings by Louis Sullivan and Daniel Burnham, leaders of the Chicago School of architecture.

Two of the street's biggest department stores -- Marshall Field's and Carson Pirie Scott -- were considered architectural masterpieces. There were theaters, nine other huge department stores and the Palmer House, for years the best hotel in town.

The corner of Madison and State is ground zero in Chicago, the center of the city -- everything is measured north and south and east and west from here. It was, at one time, the busiest intersection in the world.

State is the main drag of the Loop, that portion of the great clanking elevated train network that is very close to what Nelson Algren called ``the rusty heart'' of Chicago.

``This is the main street of Chicago, the totem pole of the tribe,'' said Norman Elkin, a planning consultant and leading light in

the Greater State Street Council.

Frank Sinatra sang of it: ``On State Street, that great street, I just want to say/They do things they never do on Broadway.'' When he sang that in the huge gaudy old Chicago Theater at Lake and State, he brought down the house.


MUCH LIKE MARKET STREET

State is similar to Market Street. State is more central to the city's life, but Market is longer and wider. The two streets have a similar history. They emerged as the main commercial streets at the same time -- the 1870s. Both were destroyed by fire: State in 1871, Market in 1906. Both even had cable cars.

Market has two subways, State has one, and both have bus lines. The mix of office buildings and retail stores is similar, and the streets both face competition from the suburbs and from other parts of the city. Market has Union Square, State has North Michigan Avenue. Both competitors are in the top five in the country in retail sales.

About 30 years ago, something started to go terribly wrong with State Street. Chicago is big and tough, but it is just like other cities: Suburban malls started drawing away middle-class shoppers, and in 1976, Water Tower Place, the country's first vertical mall, opened on North Michigan Avenue, just across the river. [an error occurred while processing this directive] North Michigan drained off the upscale shoppers, too. It became ``The Magnificent Mile,'' and the mile-long heart of State Street started to die. Many of the big stores on State closed; in their places came fast-food joints and discount stores.


`MALL' BOOM

The ``mall'' boom was on in other cities, starting in Kalamazoo, Mich., which began a national trend by closing its main street to cars. Other cities did the same: Milwaukee; Portland and Eugene, Ore.; Little Rock; Norfolk, Va.; Poughkeepsie, N.Y.; Denver and Boulder, Colo.; Santa Monica; Fresno; and Sacramento -- all closed off streets. Some had buses and some had rail, but none had cars.

At its peak, there were 200 urban centers where cars were banned.

State Street was the biggest. ``Who could resist?'' said Minor. ``We had a federal program for it. They had the dollars for us,'' said Elkin.

``We all agreed,'' said Minor. ``We needed the mall.''

In 1979, at a cost of $17 million, the makeover was complete. The sidewalks were widened. New street lamps were put in. State got new bus stops with a trendy '70s look with roofs that looked like bubbles of clear plastic. There was street sculpture. Cars were banned. State already had a subway, and now buses were allowed to roam free. ``Like a herd of elephants,'' said Chicago Tribune architectural critic Blair Kamen.

It was pretty much what is prescribed for Market Street in San Francisco: a transit-only main street, attractive to pedestrians and transit riders.

``It was supposed to make the street more enticing to shoppers,'' Kamen wrote. ``In fact, exactly the opposite occurred.''

``We began talking about taking it out in 1980,'' said Minor, who became chairman of the Greater State Street Council. ``By 1981, we knew it had failed.''

WHAT WENT WRONG?

What went wrong? Phillip Enquist, a partner at the architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill, said the mall drew all the life out of State Street. Banning cars, said Kamen, ``cut off State Street from the rest of the Loop.''

``A street,'' Kamen said, ``needs cars to give it scale. I know that sounds crazy, but what happens is it cuts off the street from the city. It is as if you cut off the heart from the arteries.''

``It took the excitement out of State Street,'' said Elizabeth Hollander, a former Chicago planning commissioner who is now with DePaul University.

At night, when the office workers left, State Street was deserted. The wide sidewalks looked empty, even when they were crowded. The Loop reportedly had one of the lowest crime rates in the city, but without crowds, people thought State Street was unsafe.

``We created an image that nothing happened after 5 p.m.,'' said Minor.

``The street hit its lowest ebb, rock-bottom,'' he said.

They don't fool around in Chicago: If you have muscle, you use it. ``The downtown businesses are the engine that runs the city,'' said Minor. And downtown wanted a change.

``We talked to our customers,'' he said. ``They all said they wanted to drive on State. They wanted to drop people off at the door of the store and park later. Cars are part of our culture.''


WIDER, BUSIER STATE STREET

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill designed a new State Street: The street was widened from two lanes to four at the expense of the wide sidewalks and the sidewalk sculpture. The food kiosks were scrapped.

Street planters were put in, with seasonal trees, honey ash and locust, plenty of decorative greens in the winter and flowers in the spring. The new streetlights went out and vintage 1926 lights came in. The sidewalks were narrowed. ``It is axiomatic that crowds attract more crowds,'' Kamen wrote, ``that a little jostling is a good thing.''

Enquist, who spent 11 years in San Francisco, had a big role in State Street, and his aim, he said, ``was to let State Street be State Street, to be a big-city street.''

When Mayor Richard M. Daley cut the ribbon to reopen the street, a year and a week ago, the cars all came back. ``It was as if they never left,'' said Enquist.





This article is 10 years old, and in the past 10 years, State Street has made a MAJOR comeback as a top destination in Chicago. I don't mind the cars on the street, there's still lots of sidewalk room. The traffic and packed sidewalks definitely give the street the feeling of bustling excitement.

Like the article says, cars are just part of our culture, people and cars in downtown areas just work together, and are always inner-mixed. Also, when you have summer temps that are reaching 40C, and winter temps that get down to -30C, there are many days when people in much of the US just aren't going to want to walk up and down a street outside. They want to park and shop indoors. It's just the way we do things here, and we're fine with that. People complain that the skywalk system in Minneapolis, connecting 69 blocks downtown with 11KM of elevated walkways between buildings (they attach at the 2nd floor of almost all buildings downtown) cuts off the flow of people on the sidewalk and makes the streets seem quiet and dead. While that might be true, it's also a city with very cold and long winters, so try telling that to the tens of thousands of people downtown who don't have to walk through snow and freezing temps during the winter.

^^

What a BS, that doesn't sound crazy, it is. There are so many cities out there where cars have been banned from 19th century streets and they do not in the least way look like "cut off the heart from the arteries". Quite in the opposite they are considered to be nowadays much nicer than before.

This article really looks like there is some one really busy at selling a bug as a feature. If you don't believe me, look at that great picture compilation of Istanbul above. It says it all.

that's not true, in here there's also a strong car culture, and some very popular pedestrian shopping streets in the bigger cities almost no-one lives near there, as people moved to suburbs, where there's cheaper and "better" housing.

^ I agree, the residential density of central London's shopping areas and Financial districts are a mere 1400-3000 per sq. mile.
Only the rare super rich get to live in the centre.

However by day they reach up to 400,000 per sq. mile. By night some entertainment districts see up to 500,000 passing through
in a single night, and 1 million on weekends.


there are no residentials in this entire pic, despite the density:


The difference is the reliance on a mass transit system for all three- commuters, shoppers and partygoers.
Thus cutting out the car on a shopping street means you still retain the vast majority (if not more) people.

1200 tube/rail stations transport the bulk of the population, even if you have a car you still often use public transport as its accessible.