"Would car traffic bring back the crowds?" by Michael Levenson, Globe Staff | March 1, 2009
Downtown Crossing's problems have been well-documented: Crime has spawned fear, heightened by a stabbing and shooting in the midst of a bustling afternoon. Shops that once thrived next to Jordan Marsh and Filene's have shuttered, leaving empty storefronts cheek-by-jowl with pushcarts, discount jewelry stalls, and gaping construction sites. Sidewalks that teem with rowdy teenagers and office workers by day lie empty and forbidding at night.
For years, city planners have been promising to restore the area to its former grandeur and make it a major urban destination. But as they have attempted solution after solution without success, they have never tried one idea: reopening the streets to traffic.
Indeed, Downtown Crossing remains one of the last vestiges of a largely discredited idea, the American pedestrian mall, which municipal planners once believed would help cities compete with proliferating suburban malls. In the 1970s, at least 220 cities closed downtown thoroughfares, paved them with bricks or cobbles and waited for them to take hold as urban destinations. Since then, all but about two dozen have reopened the malls to traffic, as planners, developers, and municipal officials came to believe that the lack of cars had an effect opposite of what they had intended, driving away shoppers, stifling businesses, and making streets at night seem barren and forlorn....
Boston planners are against opening up Downtown Crossing, but.... Boston officials say they considered reopening Downtown Crossing to traffic and, in 2006, hired a team of consultants from London, Toronto, Berkeley, Calif., and Boston to study the idea.
So they WASTED TAX DOLLARS on CONSULTANTS, huh?
The consultants concluded that the mall should stay because the estimated 230,000 people who walk through Downtown Crossing every day should be enough to keep the place lively and economically vital.
Well, APPARENTLY NOT!
"What we heard from them pretty loudly was, 'Not just yet. Make it work. Give it your best effort,' " said Andrew Grace, senior planner and urban designer at the Boston Redevelopment Authority. "Lots of cities throughout the world make these districts work. The historic centers in most European cities function, and they thrive."
This ain't Europe!
***********************
Boston built its pedestrian mall after a study showed that six times more pedestrians than cars traveled down Washington Street - in front of what was then Filene's and Jordan Marsh - "so the impetus was to reassert the balance for pedestrians a little bit and improve the safety and amenities for pedestrians," said Jane Howard, who helped design the mall for the BRA and is now a planner in a private firm.
It was a time when malls were being built across the country. Some are still considered successful - in Burlington, Vt., and Charlottesville, Va., for example. And New York City is experimenting with blocking traffic on Broadway through Times and Herald squares to create pedestrian-only zones. But those are the exceptions.
Chicago, which turned downtown State Street into a pedestrian mall in 1979, reopened it to traffic in 1996, convinced that the mall had worsened the area's economic slump and left the street deserted and dangerous. Eugene, Ore., scrapped its mall in 1997, frustrated that "people went around downtown instead of through it," said Mayor Kitty Piercy. Tampa got rid of its mall in 2001 because it "didn't bring back any retail," as the city had hoped, said Christine M. Burdick president of Tampa Downtown Partnership.
Buffalo, which has trolley service on its mall on Main Street, is currently reintroducing cars after finding that shoppers avoided stores that were cut off from traffic. "It takes a leap of faith to go somewhere nearby, pay to park, and then walk to someplace you haven't been yet," said Deborah Chernoff, Buffalo's planning director. "All the cities are dealing with the reality of how people actually behave."
Sigh. Nothing like a delusional city, 'eh?
Downtown Crossing is not even a full pedestrian mall. Because Washington Street, its main thoroughfare, is open to commercial traffic, pedestrians mostly stick to the sidewalks, avoiding the cabs and police cruisers that often ply the route.
After dark on a recent weeknight, just after 8:30 p.m., Downtown Crossing resembled a film noir scene, its deserted rain-slick streets glistening with the reflections of neon signs from a shuttered liquor store and a discount jewelry shop. The few pedestrians who hurried by were mostly teenagers and office workers descending into the subway or headed to the bustle on Tremont Street. They walked purposefully, scurrying past darkened store after darkened store with metal gates pulled shut. The only cars were a police cruiser that rumbled past, an idling garbage truck, and the occassional taxi.
Yet some say the mall should stay. The developer Ronald M. Druker, who owns buildings on Washington Street, said he has "vivid memories of the conflict between cars and pedestrians," before the mall was built. "If you insinuated cars and trucks on a normal basis into that area, it would not enliven it," he said. "It would create the same problems that it created 30 years ago when we got rid of them."
But others, particularly the shop owners struggling to survive the recession say they are eager to try just about anything that would bring back business.
"Downtown Crossing definitely needs something - that's for sure," said Harry Gigian owner since 1970 of Harry Gigian Co. jewelers on Washington Street, which has seen a sharp dropoff in sales. "Nobody comes downtown anymore." --more--"
The elites never did, so what do they care?
Hell, da Mayor even ignores the spot!
"Mayor's walking tour skirts downtown woes; He hails shop opening, vows to keep traffic out" by John C. Drake, Globe Staff | March 5, 2009
Pfffft!
Mayor Thomas M. Menino strolled part of the Downtown Crossing district of Boston yesterday, shaking hands with enthusiastic shop owners and celebrating the grand opening of a burrito shop. The tour - joined by neighborhood boosters, journalists, and members of Menino's staff - was designed to bolster his contention that Downtown Crossing should remain a pedestrian mall, sealed off from traffic, as it has been for 30 years.
Ironically, Menino actually used his walk to survey parts of the district that are open to motor traffic, and he avoided the pedestrian-only sections that have drawn complaints about crime and loitering. But the mayor nonetheless used the visit to dispute assertions by several area shop owners who told the Globe last week they want the city to add energy and excitement to the zone by reopening Downtown Crossing to cars.
What a FUCKING ASSHOLE!!!!! I'm glad I don't live in Bah-stan!
"It's important to have people walking there," Menino said after cutting the ribbon at Boloco, a chain restaurant that has large windows that open onto Province Street. "In the future, as we redevelop Downtown Crossing, we could have galleries along the walkways on weekends."
While major urban areas like Chicago, Tampa, and Eugene, Ore., have abandoned pedestrian malls, Boston has clung to what it calls a "pedestrian zone," where people on foot can roam free, dodging only the occasional commercial truck or safety vehicle.
"Having traffic there doesn't help the flow of pedestrians as you move forward," Menino declared yesterday. Menino avoided Washington Street, the section's main thoroughfare and the north-south axis of its pedestrian walkway, and thus did not bring reporters past the crumpled side of the former Filene's building and the accompanying hole in the ground that was to be a new hotel and retail development but has become a symbol of failed dreams in Downtown Crossing. The project was halted because of frozen credit markets....
Oh, the MAYOR WORE ROSE-COLORED GLASSES to his PHOTO OP TOUR?
Menino acknowledged that Downtown Crossing can be foreboding at night as stores close and the only activity is an occasional truck or police car.
"If you create activity on the street, it won't be a ghost town," Menino said. He pointed with pleasure to a 31-story condominium tower nearing completion. "Look at this building," he said. "That's 100 or so units of new housing. It's about the future. We talk about the past everyday. I'm talking about the future."
I don't know how you stand this sh***er, Bostonians.
Randi Lathrop, deputy director for community planning at the Boston Redevelopment Authority, said.... "The pedestrian zone is going to stay."
And that's that! Fuck the local businessman!
One major Downtown Crossing developer, Ronald M. Druker, said giving up on the pedestrian area would be a disaster. He said the problems at Downtown Crossing are related to the global economic crisis and a failure by the city to better manage the pedestrian zone.
Actually, having one is.
"When business is good, the Downtown Crossing is thriving, and when it is managed properly, it absolutely works," Druker said. "The life that can be generated by pedestrian activity makes that retail much more viable. A managed environment that is vehicle-free is far better than having cars compete with pedestrians."
One local developer on the tour said he favored adding cars to Washington Street, pointing to Philadelphia as an example where an outdoor shopping district had done so successfully.
"Once it was reopened and re-landscaped, traffic came through, and it became a major turnaround," said Clarence Harwood. But his support for additional cars on Washington Street may not be surprising. He owns the Pi Alley Garage.
Oh, right, HE HAS an ANGLE to GRIND!!!! Pffft!
And talk about CHUTZPAH!!
I'm sure the Globe was ALL FOR the ENVIRONMENTALLY-FRIENDLY IDEA at the time!
"Downtown Crossing: End the failed experiment
Few ideas in urban planning have been tried as widely and failed as spectacularly as the pedestrian mall. When the intersection of Summer, Winter, and Washington streets in Boston was converted into one 30 years ago, planners believed that city streets had to emulate suburban shopping centers to remain vital. But Downtown Crossing has stagnated. In the evening, the lack of passing vehicles - and eyeballs - makes the area seem creepy and deserted. The Boston Redevelopment Authority insists that the pedestrian zone is there to stay - and even wants to raise the existing roadway to sidewalk level to reinforce the pedestrian-only look. Reopening the area to cars is a better option. It's telling that when Mayor Menino took a walking tour Wednesday to showcase the neighborhood's vitality, he visited streets that are open to traffic. --more--"
And telling that the Globe doesn't mention its support for the idea or apology for it.
