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And I wouldn't mind walk on 28th street. It wouldn't bother me.
Say I took the bus for some reason on a particular day and 28th Street happened to be on the route home for me and I needed to run some errand at one of the strip malls, I'd have absolutely no problem getting off, walking down 28th Street, walking across the parking lot to the store, walking back across the parking lot, walking along 28th Street to the non-amenity bench and waiting for the bus. It's not someplace I'd go out of my way to go to to walk around and eat a fancy meal and look at some over priced boutiques and people watch. But if I needed to go there and for some reason driving wasn't the most practical method, I would. And that's not that different than Pearl Mall. I might drive to Pearl Mall, park my car, and walk around... but realistically I'm personally going to get there by driving unless I live within a few blocks. So it's not like Pearl Mall is really walkable since chances are I drove from A to B1 and then walked a negligible distance from B1 to B. It's a nice atmosphere but not really that urban, which isn't surprising considering Boulder is a very small city.
I would think that it would be terrible inconvenient to take a bus to 28th Street from Sacramento to run errands. YMMV.
And in 30+ years in Boulder I went to the Pearl Street Mall often but almost never had to worry about parking. Again YMMV.
And by your definition NYC is not really walkable because someone can drive there.
I would think that it would be terrible inconvenient to take a bus to 28th Street from Sacramento to run errands. YMMV. And in 30+ years in Boulder I went to the Pearl Street Mall often but almost never had to worry about parking. Again YMMV.
Lots of surface parking lots help in that regard, glad you enjoyed them too.
And some people love the Boulder Mall for the exact same reasons. But neither of these positions is anything about walkability. And who said anything about wanting a city hall on every street?
I am assuming Malloric posted the picture of the bus stop bench because I commented 28th Street did not have any public amenities for pedestrians. And yes, you are correct, anyone can sit there. But is anyone seriously arguing that a bus shelter bench, six feet away from and facing a 8 lane highway with no protection or buffer, is a "pedestrian amenity"?
In every thread about walkability, walkers are mocked because they have expressed that walking across parking lots is not their idea of good walkability. Try looking at it this way, as a driver, if every time I went to the bank or post office or grocery store, I found a parking place and then I had to walk across a huge bus terminal to get to the bank, PO or grocery store. I would think "WTF, why am I being treated like a second class citizen". "Why do I have to deal with a bus terminal when I did not take a bus?"
You see a driver WANTS there to be a parking lot between the public realm and the private business, so the driver expects to have to deal with a parking lot. A pedestrian has zero need or want for a parking lot, it is just an ugly obstacle.
I didn't realize I had posted a definition of walkability. "Wanting to walk" is an individual/personal decision. But a well designed, walkable environment will make it more likely that I will want to walk.
Speaking of wanting to walk, we have that gorgeous Colorado fall weather and this morning I walked to the PO, Library and Farmers Market. Later this afternoon, after my hike, I will walk down to the corner brew pub. Life is good!
Well, you did give a definition of walkability. (I like that word; sounds like "Rockabilly".) See below, from a previous post of yours:
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From an urban planning point of view, "walkability" is not about whether it is physically POSSIBLE to walk from point A to point B. It is about making the built environment so people WILL walk from point A to point B.
If you actually think about it, there is a difference.
I guess I misunderstood or misread this statement:
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In that 1.5 miles there is not a single residential building or public pedestrian amenity (bench, pocket park or water fountain).
and thought you said something about "public facility", e.g. a city office, county office, etc. My apologies. However, I dispute that there are no residential buildings in that 1.5 mile stretch. I think there are some condos there, or very nearby.
Yes, it's a nice day here, 58 degrees as I type. Indian Summer is coming!
Lots of surface parking lots help in that regard, glad you enjoyed them too.
Sorry if I was not clear. I didn't worry about parking because I walked or biked or took a bus.
I can only think of one small public surface lot for the mall (Spruce & Broadway).
There are maybe 20 surface lot spaces behind the court house for county business.
Wells Fargo has a large surface lot but that is only for the bank.
There are two structured public lots
The library has surface lot, but only for the library.
Where is all this surface parking for the mall that you speak of?
Well, you did give a definition of walkability. (I like that word; sounds like "Rockabilly".) See below, from a previous post of yours:
I guess I misunderstood or misread this statement:
and thought you said something about "public facility", e.g. a city office, county office, etc. My apologies. However, I dispute that there are no residential buildings in that 1.5 mile stretch. I think there are some condos there, or very nearby.
Yes, it's a nice day here, 58 degrees as I type. Indian Summer is coming!
Wasn't meant to be a definition of walkability, just my take on one of the goals of urban planning.
To make places that people want to walk. Or more accurately give people the option to walk.
All the residential in the area is a block off 28th either east or west. Can't think of anything right on 28th.
When they redeveloped Crossroads Mall, the original plan was to make in more mixed use with lots of residential on the upper floors.
Wasn't meant to be a definition of walkability, just my take on one of the goals of urban planning.
To make places that people want to walk. Or more accurately give people the option to walk.
All the residential in the area is a block off 28th either east or west. Can't think of anything right on 28th.
When they redeveloped Crossroads Mall, the original plan was to make in more mixed use with lots of residential on the upper floors.
Crossroads is now "29th Street", not "28th Street". 28th always was the arterial.
It's 5 minutes. Anything longer than that and the number of people who will walk VOLUNTARILY drastically decreases. At 10 minutes there are far more people who will opt to drive than walk. Any further than that and you only really get fitness walkers and the disadvantaged and only a very very few committed hardcore pedestrians who opt for walking.
5 minutes? That's pathetic. 5 minutes must be the time it takes to walk from the inside of "any mall in America" out to the parking lot.
Pathetic...just pathetic.
I agree with the OP about walking distance. Anything within 20 minutes is totally walkable to me. For me, both of my homes are walkable to most of my daily conveniences and what's not walkable is accessible to me by either bike-share or by local loop bus. In DT Raleigh, the loop bus is a free ride; in SouthBeach, it's 25cents. IMO, having options other than a car makes longer walking distances more palatable.
Some of us can walk across parking lots. I would have thought the true urbanista couldn't go to Pearl Mall either since it has surface parking lots. Maybe there's different subsets. The qualifiers on someplace being True Urbanista Approved For Walkability (TM) always confuse me though. I'd much rather walk at Pearl Mall, but I wouldn't have a problem walking on 28th street either. It's substantially better than most major thoroughfares.
And why is that? You'd much rather walk at the Pearl St one, so why is it surprising others are calling it more walkable as well.
4. Very little useful merchandise to buy. You can buy a kite at "Kites into the Wind"; you can shop for art and the Arts and Crafts Co-op (one of my favorite stores there); you can buy a book at Boulder Book Store (another of my faves); you can buy candy at Rocky Mountain Candy Co; or you can eat, drink, drink some more, eat some more at various bars and restaurants. It's hard to find a pair of jeans or shoes there, or even a doctor's office or a hairdresser.
Personally, I'd like a downtown-like environment to have normal shops.
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Thank you Malloric for taking the time to post those links. Sure, 28th St. is a busy Boulder street, but it has many of the major elements the urbanists claim are absolutely essential for living in 2013, e.g. separated sidewalks with grass strips. Maybe a little too much landscaping and trees for the concrete fans, though. The bench is an RTD bus stop, but there is no reason anyone could not sit down on it.
The sidewalks here have no grassy strips, at least near the center of town. They're fine. The traffic speed is much slower than 28th street, of course.
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Eddyline, one of the big complaints about shopping centers, etc, from the urbanists is that one has to walk across the parking lot. Surely you have read these posts.
Personally, if I had a choice I'd rather see buildings than a sea of parking, be able to look into the shops I pass by.
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Please explain why "wanting to walk" is included in your definition of walkability.
As I said before, if walking is unpleasant enough of a location and if have a choice, I'd drive or walk elsewhere. Yes, it's doable (though many of the intersections look nasty, and there aren't many places one can cross). And in my experience, wide highway-like roads don't get many pedestrians, though that Boulder might get a bit more since it's a college area.
Quoting from another thread but perhaps it belongs here better? Click on the arrows for the source
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Originally Posted by Malloric
I doubt it. If you actually look at that area, it's littered with parking lots. Me, I kind of like it. The fact that there's quite a lot of surface parking available doesn't really diminish its appeal to me at all. It's a nice little downtown area. The parking lots probably did a lot to save it. When you had a population shift out to the suburbs, you didn't need as many buildings downtown. You cull the herd of dilapidated buildings, concentrate what's left along Main Street. Rather than being half abandoned buildings depressing the entire area, you have parking lots. No one gets excited about parking lots, but most people prefer them to urban blight caused by excess unwanted building stock in an area which tends to snowball.
Now, if Northhampton grows, it's a parking lot. It's pretty easy to infill a parking lot... but let's face it, Northhampton has the same population it did 60 years ago, and I'm pretty sure it's seen some development of strip malls and subdivisions pulling population and customers outwards. And regardless of the plethora of parking lots in the area, it seems that for most real people, the urban fabric isn't destroyed. Given, most of them probably drove there and appreciate the convenience of all the parking. That doesn't mean they want to tear down some buildings on Main Street for another parking lot. But if you just removed all the parking, the area would most likely die as well. Parking is a necessity. In someplace like Northhampton that's predominantly so-called urban-destroying surface parking lots. And apparently there's enough people that are juts fine with surface parking lots, since it looks pretty busy to me. Although that's kind of luck of the draw, usually they do streetviews really early in the morning when there's no activity so it can be deceptive.
I never said there weren't any surface lots, yes there are plenty of them in Northampton. But the parking lots surround the old downtown, it doesn't break it up. It would be less of a cute little downtown if in between every other old building on Main Street was a parking lot. Most of the parking lots are a bit hidden going out in the most directions out from the center. If one drives there (or arrives any other method), you can walk around I don't know what was there before parking lots were built, I suspect few old buildings were destroyed since there's little 3-4 story brick buildings similar in style to the ones on Main street on the other side of parking lots. I'd guess it is either smaller sized buildings or unbuilt. The aerials I could find only go back to 1966:
and at that point parking lots were already there. But no, I don't think the parking lots interfere with the downtown, maybe a bit of an eyesore, but doesn't affect the appeal. They mesh ok, and yes, it needs some parking as walking and transit can't support the local businesses. There are some nearby residences who arrive on foot and a few who arrive by transit, but I'd assume the majority drive and it'd unrealistic for most of them to arrive any other way. If you're city is larger and much denser supporting drivers is less of a need, as far more people are within walking distance and can arrive by transit. Cambridge has relatively few surface lots, for the size of its commercial development:
There's also a subway underneath the main commercial street, besides lots of bus service. The city can be annoying to drivers and survive just fine; space is valuable. As to the first bolded:
Interesting old buildings, people walking around. Besides some nice shops there are often events and it's good for people watching. I get a better sense of who's in the community by the people walking around. Most people who've visited me liked having a town nearby. Now imagine if half the buildings were gone and replaced by parking lots.
Second view is some strip mall development, especially to the north. Can both views be walked to? Yes. Which ones gets more pedestrians? The first one by far. The second road isn't that wide, so crossing isn't bad. Practically, the first view has more stores in a shorter distance. Besides being a more enjoyable place to be, its layout is more convenient. Transit-wise the first one is better, as with a center all transit routes converge there. There are also more residences in a short walk of the first view than the second.
As to demolishing old buildings for a parking lot, if it could encourage businesses to move in maybe it'd be worthwhile, or you'd just be stuck with less old buildings and a bunch of parking lots, without little unique about the downtown. Nearby Holyoke has some vacant storefronts:
but I doubt demolishing buildings for parking would help, there's available street parking right nearby. Lack of parking is the least of the worries because it's not well used enough for parking to run out.
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