01-12-2016, 09:40 AM
(01-12-2016, 08:31 AM)Viewfromthe42 Wrote: ...The 500-1,000 sqft apartment/condo buys groceries once a week, but the 3-6 parking spaces you can fit in that space turn over many times every day, generating far more sales. Now, depending on your beliefs, transit users can have a similar sales effect, depending on how far they're willing to struggle with their goods to get home...I've seen a lot of evidence that suggests that people on foot and bike actually spend more than motorists. Here's a link to one article I remember.
I agree with most of your points, though. For those of us who are interested in seeing more of the cores set aside for people who don't happen to be in cars, we should be careful about the municipalities moving too fast. These types of things are likely to be introduced as pilots first: if there are not enough potential users, those pilots will fail and the experience might ultimately delay the implementation of pedestrianized streets. Dundas Street East in London was once pedestrianized at the urging of the local BIA and others; the problem was that it had already declined to the point that few people were going to be walking down it, on the sidewalk or down the middle. That experiment failed, and the failure is pointed to by many Londoners every time someone suggests closing Dundas in the core to car traffic (which really might be warranted) or even car-free events on other streets.