More on pedestrian malls

After writing the earlier blog entry, "How to f*** up 17th Street NW in Dupont Circle," I sent a query to the public space elist sponsored by the Project for Public Spaces. This is from Ethan Kent, a PPS VP:

I also would love to see more research on this. I am sure that the IDA panel yielded some interesting results.

One of the best explanations that I have heard for why some pedestrian malls fail was from PPS board member Don Miles of ZGF, who explains that it is the mixing of the passive, park-like uses and the active uses of retail that are incompatible [in terms of keeping] the necessary retail vitality.

The debate can not be cars vs. parks, it has to be that there are more valuable and compelling uses for the space that build off of and support existing uses.

Pedestrian malls seem to fail when it has been driven by the solution (greening, design statements, pedestrianization, streetscape, etc.) rather than by how it is going to be used, how it is going to be managed, what the destinations are going to be, how the retail is going to be supported by the street, etc.

PPS has recommended both to open and close streets and has developed management plans to try to make failing pedestrian malls work. It is perhaps hardest to make them work when the street is not designed to be managed and programmed and usually there is very little organizational capacity to do this. When communities think of closing a street before considering how the space will be used, I think you have to back up the conversation.

Also see this blog entry, "John King on Cities (looking at Minneapolis)."

Nicollet Mall, Minneapolis. Photo sources unknown.