'Car Free' Days Idea Not Welcomed By Many
We've talked about 'car free' days on this blog before and whether they'd be feasible in our area. Well, Seattle's Mayor thought they would work there, but some west-siders disagree.
Read the story then let us know if you think the business owners' concerns are reasonable, or if you think the 'car free' days could actually be a boon for business? And if we were to do one around here, what areas would you like to see be part of the experiment?
About SRTC
SRTC is the federally designated Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) for Spokane County. Urbanized areas with populations exceeding 50,000 people are required to have an MPO. SRTC was formed to address the county's transportation planning needs. It provides coordination in planning between the public, cities, small towns, the county, the state, transit providers, and tribes.
SRTC offers services including transportation monitoring, transportation modeling, census information analysis, travel demand forecasting, historical traffic count analysis, geographic information systems, and trip generation rates.
4 comments:
Sounds like an interesting idea, but as the businessman said some businesses would lose a lot of business. I do think the idea of a walkable neighborhood is good, but so few neighborhoods are walkable now, they are mostly set up for the cars. Before Northtown was a covered mall they used to have annual sidewalk sales, and it never failed to rain that weekend, so it would probably rain the days the roads were closed.
It's pretty much Murphy's Law that it will rain :)
But on the subject of hurting businesses, as the Mayor points out, it's only ONE day and it's only an experiment; if it doesn't go well the first time or hurts the businesses too much, the idea will be scrapped for that area.
It is possible it will bring more people to the businesses also. When they stopped the smoking at the taverns they lost business at first, but now almost all are doing more business than before the smoking ban.
It would be essential to design this kind of program with full involvement of the businesses affected, as well as the neighborhoods. It really can work.
This concept is called Ciclovia in South America, and is very big in Bogota, Colombia. People take back the streets, and there are MORE people, not fewer.
New York City is experimenting with the same thing. It's even being tried--and succeeding--in Texas; if Texans can get out of the cars they fuel with oil they suck out of their very own dirt, seems to me maybe Washingtonians could handle the shock.
We need to get away from the notion that if you want people to be somewhere, you have to invite their cars, too.
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