09-21-2020, 11:20 PM
(09-21-2020, 10:56 PM)ijmorlan Wrote:(09-21-2020, 10:23 PM)jeffster Wrote: I think the real problem for cities in the area is the crappy climate with have for at least 6 months of the year. I think we might be able to do it for 4 months, maybe, like the May long weekend until the end of September. Though perhaps you could climatized the mall, but then that almost defeats the purpose.
What is the purpose? Every time this sort of discussion comes up, I always see things I don’t understand about the evils of interior spaces. What purpose of pedestrianization would be defeated by climate-controlling the space?
I also want to know more about car-free spaces supposedly destroying downtowns. In a busy downtown, the number of people on a normal-size sidewalk will be enormously higher than the number of people who could possibly be travelling in the motor vehicle lanes in cars. Furthermore, people in cars can’t easily get to the stores: they first have to park somewhere, in almost all cases not on the street (even if there is on-street parking, it can’t have significant capacity compared to the total number of people there).
So how does removing the maybe 10% of the traffic that is in cars on the street and giving the space to the 90% that is on foot destroy the downtown? What is really going on here? Is it that pedestrianization is tried as a way of rejuvenating something that is in decline, and it just doesn’t stop the decline? Are my numbers wrong (but I’ve walked on Yonge Street downtown; there is no way that a significant fraction of the people are in cars)? Or is it something else?
You got me. I think something climate controlled would be good, at least for the cold months. But it seems to have negatives attached to it.
Yonge St in Toronto is an unfair comparison to any city. But I did try to find more info on Buffalo (little more difficult than I thought it would be) and found these: https://www.thestar.com/news/pedestrian-...sance.html and this https://buffalonews.com/opinion/editoria...55265.html That said, when you mention 'busy downtowns', this doesn't ever seem to apply to places like Kitchener, or in the other case, Buffalo,
Downtown Buffalo is way more robust than Kitcheners, and both have identical populations (255,000). However, it doesn't tell the whole story. Buffalo had 506,000 in 1920 vs 22,000 for K-Town, during those times when downtowns were still being built. But if a place like Buffalo failed with this plan, I am not sure how Kitchener could be successful.