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There is a little old man who has been walking past my work for years, he gets so much exercise for all the walking he does around downtown, though I would never want to see him in a car because that would probably be deadly, but I would never tell him not to enjoy walking around downtown.
There have been several similar incidents around here, but I'm obviously not using the right search words b/c I keep getting stories about the Broncos and Peyton Manning.
A one legged Afghanistan vet doesn't fit into ohhwanderlust's implied fat lazy American stereotype. Associating laziness to how far someone can physically walk isn't very kind to certain segments of the population.
Exactly how many one legged vets do you encounter daily? Most people have the ability to walk, the question is, will they actually do so.
I sympathize with those who are legitimately disabled, and there are ways a car free downtown could be made more accessible to them (which I'm 100% for)...but let's be real...that isn't the majority.
Last edited by ohhwanderlust; 01-16-2015 at 10:19 PM..
So I just wanted opinions on whether pedestrian-only downtowns are an actual feasible endeavor with how American downtowns are set up? I tried doing a Google search for any that existed, but that came up with nothing.
And here's a screenshot of downtown Bend, just for reference for anyone:
Best thing to do is make every second or third street, pedestrian only.
There's on like that in Caracas, Venezuela in an area called "Sabana Grande"
I was wrong.... even better, they left space only for 1 lane and about 75% of the space is sidewalks.
I think that's such a great idea.
My question is, why would the NewYork Times newspaper write stories about an 85,000 population city 3,000 miles away? How bad can traffic really be? This isn't Manhattan.
So this proposal will look at the economic pros and cons of making a two block stretch of Wall and Bond streets pedestrian only, as well as the side street connecting the two, Minnesota Avenue. I've done a rough count and there's approximately 190 on street parking spots that would essentially be taken out. But there's also a five story, 550 space parking structure on the first half of Minnesota Ave. In order to get a feel for the economic pros/cons (without delving into research that would take longer than the 10 week constraints), I'm just going to go around and talk to business owners on the affected stretches of road and see what their opinions on business impact would be.
I'm curious to hear what the local business owners say. The biggest issue I see is you're blocking the biggest through streets in the center of town? Where will the traffic go? Non-downtown bound traffic could go around, which might be a plus for the area, but it could result in jamming the adjacent narrower roads.
No, but you know, some of these "urbanists" don't stop to think about people with disabilities, or even people carting along small children or the able bodied but perhaps slower and less energetic elderly. It's mostly about young, physically fit people, particularly young men who don't have to worry so much about their physical safety as women, either.
For what it's worth, Spain had plenty of less energetic elderly in the pedestrian only zones. And some young children. And in New York City, you do see parents pushing strollers down the street. Obviously, the situation is a bit different compared to typical American locations, but saying not having to walk a few blocks is a necessity is a bit much in most cases. The pedestrian downtown described in the OP was only a few blocks.
Norfolk, VA tried to make Granby St a pedestrian mall which was a complete failure that shut down most of the businesses unless your business was a drug dealer or prostitute. During the build up of the car era downtowns tried to compete with suburban malls by turning retail streets into pedestrian streets and most of them failed.
Granby St really sucks right about now. I might have actually preferred what you speak of to the way that things are right now.
Granby St really sucks right about now. I might have actually preferred what you speak of to the way that things are right now.
Norfolk in general has always been a let down for me, so much potential yet always acting like they have no idea what to do. Granby should be lined with shops and restaurants that are all busy any time of the day. Though I do remember when it was a pedestrian mall, you just didn't enter the street because it was worse than today.
My question is, why would the NewYork Times newspaper write stories about an 85,000 population city 3,000 miles away? How bad can traffic really be? This isn't Manhattan.
i've been mostly done with this project for a while now, but reading this interested me. what other articles are there about bend that the nyt has done? i'm aware of one about skiing, and how bend made it into their 52 places to see in 2015, but i'm unaware of others?
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