Madison Wisconsin should be rethinking its pedestrian "district"

Unlike Western Europe, where many cities still have pedestrian districts that thrive at the center of their towns, despite the post-war adoption of the automobile as the primary form of mobility, the US pretty much dropped interest in pedestrian districts and city centers as it adopted the automobile.

In 1959, starting in Kalamazoo, Michigan ("Kalamazoo Mall, nation's first pedestrian mall, opened 60 years ago today," Kalamazoo Gazette), pedestrian malls were created in many cities as a last gasp measure to resuscitate city shopping districts in the face of competition from suburban malls, but for the most parts, these efforts failed and the malls were torn out and returned to automobile traffic.

One exception was pedestrian malls in college towns, where because a lot of the area population didn't have cars--college students--walking still was a dominant element of the mobility mix. (There are still pedestrian malls in non-college places like Santa Monica, California and Winchester, Virginia.)

College towns in Burlington, Vermont, Madison, Wisconsin, Boulder, Colorado and Charlottesville, Virginia are probably the most successful examples.

I wrote about Boulder's in 2005, "Now I know why Boulder's Pearl Street Mall is the exception that proves the rule about the failures of pedestrian malls."

Flickr photo by Let Ideas Compete.

So I often was critical about efforts to create similar districts in "today's circumstances" because the reality is that most cities and sub-districts don't have the volume of pedestrian traffic necessary to keep pedestrian exclusive places activated.  

Plants and planters aren't enough, you need people.

Although I have to say that I "came to my senses" in a way, not just because of the rise of the parklet movement and a wide variety of pro-pedestrian urban design initiatives, but because I came to realize that the issue was more about "rightsizing," that thinking about a multi-block mall was likely to be unsuccessful, but starting with one block in the places where a one block pedestrianized section can be successful is enough.  And it can be built from.

More recently, I've come to think about this in terms of "planning for walkable communities" versus "pedestrian planning."

-- "Land use planning is upside down by not focusing on maintaining and strengthening neighborhoods," 2022
-- "Extending the "Signature Streets" concept to "Signature Streets and Spaces"," 2020 
-- "Planning for place/urban design/neighborhoods versus planning for transportation modes: new 17th Street NW bike lanes | Walkable community planning versus "pedestrian" planning," 2021
-- "The layering effect: how the building blocks of an integrated public realm set the stage for community building," 2012

Madison Wisconsin: its pedestrian mall and nearby State Street.  But this comes up because the University of Wisconsin is doing a plan update for its section of the campus, Library Mall, abutting Madison's pedestrian mall, State Street Mall, and the local newspaper suggests that the City of Madison should join in and make it a joint planning process ("UW thinks big about pedestrian mall — the city of Madison should, too," Wisconsin State Journal).  From the article:

UW-Madison wants to reimagine and energize Library Mall in the heart of campus with stylish walkways, native plants, shade trees and splashing water.

The university’s $6 million plan looks good so far, with a fundraising campaign on the way.

Similarly, the city of Madison should be thinking big about nearby State Street, its premier shopping and entertainment district that runs between campus and the state Capitol. State Street needs more attention and investment as city buses prepare to leave the bottom half of State Street next year.

Flickr photo by Richard Hurd.

The most promising and exciting idea — one that civic leaders have talked about for decades — is turning State Street into a grand promenade. Instead of a river of concrete running its entire length, State Street should become an urban park catering to walkers, shoppers, sidewalk cafes, art, music, small business kiosks, trees, public events and more.

The lesson that I learned from the article about Boulder is that it isn't just about the design, and having lots of pedestrians, it's also about on-going management.  And, but I didn't take it as an overt lesson, planning, to ensure that the pedestrian district remains exciting and relevant in the face of changes in retail, entertainment, programming interests, etc.

What the paper is suggesting really is the creation of a pedestrian district, building on the success of Library Mall ("UW shares $6 million concept to dramatically reimagine Library Mall," WSJ), and strengthening Downtown Madison, especially in the face of how covid and the rise in work from home has reduced office district patronage and demand ("New proposal could make State Street a pedestrian mall on weekends this summer," WSJ).

Although it's unfortunate that this didn't seem to occur to either campus planners at UW or city planners.  Although I am not surprised because again, we don't tend to look at planning more organically and at the larger scale of the "walkable community."

Ann Arbor: Making State Street a curbless street.  There isn't a "pedestrian mall" at the University of Michigan, but central campus is pretty well integrated into the nearby commercial districts, so "the need" for a pedestrianized district isn't particularly pronounced. 

Plans for a redesign of the State Street commercial corridor in downtown Ann Arbor as presented to the city's Transportation Commission by the Downtown Development Authority and SmithGroup in January 2022.

Ann Arbor is redesigning and reconstructing State Street in the vicinity of the campus to be a "curbless street," which theoretically is a pro-pedestrian treatment ("Construction begins on downtown Ann Arbor’s first curbless street," Ann Arbor News).

But the design for State Street seems pretty automobile-centric.  Looking at the rendering it doesn't come across as a curbless street at all, at least if a curbless street is defined as being pro-pedestrian.  

But I suppose it is a start.

Exhibition Road in London is much better design-wise (Guardian review, 2012).  It doesn't come across so well in this photo which was taken early in the day before the museums had opened.

But problems with "the design" are evident in that pedestrian-car crashes were frequent.  

Proving to me that in car-centric places like the UK and the US, "shared spaces" can be extremely problematic.