Close Woodward off to traffic?

[iheartthed]

Now you're just being silly. THERE IS NO CROSSTOWN THOROUGHFARE THAT CUTS THROUGH THE BUSINESS DISTRICT IN DETROIT. [[Unless you count old High Street, later renamed Vernor Highway, later cut into a depressed urban freeway.)

Great. Now you understand why I named Woodward for the purposes of my question.

[windsor_shane]

there is alot of bashing going on here... i do agree that closing off woodward is a bad idea... but id like to post another idea., about closing one lane of traffic in each direction to install angle parking with a median between the angle spots, the parking road, and then main 2 lanes of traffic. ie, 2 lanes traffic each way, median with strip of trees, lane for access to parking spaces, 45deg parking, sidealk

in the centre still have the light rail... do this in the merchants area

i think it would make the street more pedestrian friendly and add parking [[this would atract more business)

[Detroitnerd]

Great. Now you understand why I named Woodward for the purposes of my question.

No, I understand your RATIONALIZATION for choosing it, but it's still a poor choice.

Main drag thoroughfares perform a much different function than cross- and side-streets. You can close down cross- and side-streets without doing much harm to people who are trying to use the main stem for what it's supposed to do: Move the most people through the length of the city and out into the less populated areas.

See, this is why people can propose turning 42nd Street into all-ped; it's a CROSS-STREET!

This is why they can close Bourbon Street after 6 p.m.: It's a SIDE-STREET!

And this is why NOBODY would propose closing BROADWAY to traffic in New York: IT'S THE MAIN-FUCKING-DRAG!

You say you WANTED to choose a similar street to 42nd Street so you chose Woodward. You chose poorly. Get over it.

[Detroitnerd]

Angle parking is not a great idea. You park fewer cars that way while taking up more road space. Also, if you can't parallel park, maybe you shouldn't be driving.

As practiced in this country, medians are also a waste of space.

Sorry, I guess I've got to bash you too!

[EastsideAl]

I've seen the 42nd St. idea for NYC, and I think it might make sense - for NYC. They pretty recently shut down sections of Broadway in Midtown to vehicle traffic, and will probably see how that works out before making any further decisions about expanding no-car zones. But, as pointed out so often in this forum, Detroitis really in no way comparable to NYC. Better to look to other cities closer to Detroit's size, and with something more like Detroit's culture and economy [[and its problems) to look for good urban ideas applicable here.

What is really interesting to me that this idea has been a failure in the U.S. pretty much anywhere its been tried, including NYC [[see the Fulton Mall in downtown Brooklyn for an example). Most European cities I've been in have pedestrian streets like this; in Germany whole areas of central cities are given over to pedestrians, and it generally works very well for all concerned. But here in this country, even on streets where it seems like it should logically work like State St. in Chicago, the idea has failed. Although it's hard to see the direct benefit of vehicle traffic to retailers, shoppers, or motorists - since when these main streets are open to traffic there is usually little or no street parking available and even stopping to let someone out is usually not feasible - it's indisputable that most American pedestrian only areas become like ghost towns rather than the festive public common spaces envisioned by planners.

[Detroitnerd]

Broadway is 18 miles long, reaches from downtown Manhattan out to Yonkers.

Woodward Avenue is 24 miles long, reaches from downtown Detroit out to Pontiac.

42nd Street is about 2 and a half miles long and goes from river to river.

Great comparison ...

[Retroit]

As usual, Detroit"argument for argument's sake"nerd takes a minor, ancillary point and turns it into a federal case. I don't think that ihearthed's main intention was to contend that Woodward is exactly like 42nd Street, but merely to ask if Woodward could be close like 42nd Street.

.

[Detroitnerd]

The difference is that I actually enjoy debating with iheart.

You, however, I find loathsome.

[Retroit]

You, however, I find loathsome.

That's because, with me, you know you can't win.

[Detroitnerd]

Haha. Thanks for the laugh, Retroit.

[douglasm]

The question I have to ask is how many "downtown [[or midtown) malls" have been attempted, and of those, how many have had a sucuessful run? I can think of 3 right off hand [[Jackson, MI, Tacoma, WA, Yakima, WA) and all were absolute failures.

[Mackinaw]

Hope you're joking, Iheart.

The key is creating a city and an infrastructure where there are less cars on the road and more people on the sidewalks, but closing a road is not the way to do that. Creating a kick-ass rail system and encouraging more high quality investment along the premier corridor of the city would do all of this and more.

I also think the 42nd St. proposal is silly.

[lo_to_d]

I could see it from Grand Circus to Campus Martius if there was a larger density of housing units around the area and all of the cross streets were open and two way, not one way. Detroit has way too many one way streets. It works pretty well in Madison, WI and many European cities, but unfortunately the car has controlled urban planning for far too long in the U.S.

[crawford]

What is really interesting to me that this idea has been a failure in the U.S. pretty much anywhere its been tried, including NYC [[see the Fulton Mall in downtown Brooklyn for an example).

While I generally agree with your post and sentiments, the Fulton Mall in downtown Brooklyn is most definitely NOT a failure.

In fact, the Fulton Mall has some of the highest rents and lowest vacancies in the entire country. Retail space on the Fulton Mall costs more than Michigan Ave. in Chicago, for example.

Maybe you think it's not successful because the retail is mostly lower-end. This is true, but they do EXTREMELY high sales on the street; so high that Target and JCPenney have announced new stores along the Fulton Mall, and Macys is doing a major overhaul.

For those that don't know, the Fulton Mall is a "transit mall" in downtown Brooklyn, meaning a pedestrian mall that allows buses in the center lanes. It's similar to the former State Street Mall in downtown Chicago and the former Woodward Transit Mall in Detroit, but, unlike the others has never really had problems with vacancies or decline.

Now I cannot answer the Fulton Mall is successful because of the pedestrian design. Maybe it would be more successful with a traditional sidewalk/roadway layout, or maybe not. I really don't know.

What I do know is that the City regards it as a success, and is spending millions to redesign the corridor, with no plans to change the format [[though they do want to attract more mid-scale and upscale retailers, and get rid of the junkier stores, which is already happening, with junkier stores being replaced by stores such as H&M).

[LouHat]

I don't think that ihearthed's main intention was to contend that Woodward is exactly like 42nd Street, but merely to ask if Woodward could be close like 42nd Street.

.

Right, install the choo-choo, but skip the kootchy-koo.

[ASR89]

I still haven't heard much official news about the Woodward light rail project in quite some time. Woodward is wide enough to accommodate light rail between Wayne State and Campus Martius. The downtown alignment is another story. Personally, I don't like any of the alignments the DTOGS folks proposed. And I don't like the M1 Rail folks' idea of having cars and light rail vehicles co-mingling. The new rail line should have a dedicated right of way. Where is the incentive of taking it if you're stuck in the same traffic?

I don't know what's under Woodward, and I know it would be more expensive, but how much more money would it cost to build the last mile from Grand Circus Park to Hart Plaza underground? It could be a straight shot with underground stations at GCP, Campus Martius and Hart Plaza. It would be rather slow and out of the way for some if it runs parallel with the People Mover or stops at Rosa Parks Transit Centre.

Or why not expand Woodward through the north part of downtown? There's plenty of space on each side of the street. Between Campus Martius and Hart Plaza, there is already a divided median there so that isn't a problem. There won't be any stops between GCP and CM. There are four lanes there now, with a "lane" of parking in front of the old Hudson's block. Dedicate the two middle lanes for light rail traffic, keep the next two lanes out for cars and build one additional lane on each side. I don't know how well those LRT vehicles could turn on the curves around CM though.

Anyway, closing parts of Woodward entirely to traffic wouldn't be a good idea. Light rail could co-exist there I think.

[softailrider]

Angle parking is not a great idea. You park fewer cars that way while taking up more road space. Also, if you can't parallel park, maybe you shouldn't be driving.

As practiced in this country, medians are also a waste of space.

Sorry, I guess I've got to bash you too!

Tell that parallel parking thing to most of the women I've seen. [[ including my wife)

[EastsideAl]

While I generally agree with your post and sentiments, the Fulton Mall in downtown Brooklyn is most definitely NOT a failure.

Crawford, I agree that you're basically correct about the Fulton Mall in a commercial sense. It certainly is far more successful than any street-level retail area in the Detroit area. I don't want to waste too much space here talking about Brooklyn on a Detroit board, but perhaps the reason I perceive it as something of a failure has to do with family history. I have relatives who've lived in Brooklyn for a very long time and they remember downtown Brooklyn as a much classier shopping area, with big department stores, fine restaurants like the late lamented Gage & Tollner, theater, nightlife, etc. I remember what remained of that feeling there from my visits as a kid.

When the Fulton Mall was proposed one of the pitches for it made to people in nearby neighborhoods was that it would help restore the area back into the classier retail area that it was up into the '60s. What has come to pass instead is that all of the institutions the malling was supposed to save have disappeared, to be replaced by just the sort of garish, honky-tonk area of cheap retailers in shiny storefronts and fast food joints that the malling was supposed to avoid, albeit ones that are mostly financially successful. And it's an area which is still left pretty much empty once the stores close for the night, while other nearby neighborhoods like the Heights, Boerum/Cobble Hill, and Ft. Greene have revitalized, and traffic-filled, streets that are very active after dark.

[EastsideAl]

Or why not expand Woodward through the north part of downtown? There's plenty of space on each side of the street.

That part of Woodward wasn't always that narrow. The 4 lane set-up and overly wide sidewalks are a holdover from the pedestrian mall era there. When I was a kid in the '60s and '70s, and the street had stores and traffic, the sidewalks were narrower and the street wider. So it can definitely accommodate that again. Remember, that stretch of Woodward was open to car and bus [[and horse wagon) traffic and had streetcars running down the middle of it at great frequency for about a century up to the late 1950s.

[iheartthed]

No, I understand your RATIONALIZATION for choosing it, but it's still a poor choice.

Main drag thoroughfares perform a much different function than cross- and side-streets. You can close down cross- and side-streets without doing much harm to people who are trying to use the main stem for what it's supposed to do: Move the most people through the length of the city and out into the less populated areas.

See, this is why people can propose turning 42nd Street into all-ped; it's a CROSS-STREET!

This is why they can close Bourbon Street after 6 p.m.: It's a SIDE-STREET!

And this is why NOBODY would propose closing BROADWAY to traffic in New York: IT'S THE MAIN-FUCKING-DRAG!

You say you WANTED to choose a similar street to 42nd Street so you chose Woodward. You chose poorly. Get over it.

Well, clearly you haven't been to NYC lately because Broadway has already been closed to traffic.

[windsor_shane]

Angle parking is not a great idea. You park fewer cars that way while taking up more road space. Also, if you can't parallel park, maybe you shouldn't be driving.

As practiced in this country, medians are also a waste of space.

Sorry, I guess I've got to bash you too!

well i know medians are a waste of [[lane) space... but the might make the road more pedestrian friendly... as far as the angle parking you defiantly would fit more cars in and people would find it easier just to quickly stop at one of the shops instead of having to park their car at a garage or lot and walk there. that would increase business




this image isnt exactly what i was thinking of for woodward.... but wouldn't you be more inclined to just zip into an angle parking space to go check out a shop?

[iheartthed]

Hope you're joking, Iheart.

The key is creating a city and an infrastructure where there are less cars on the road and more people on the sidewalks, but closing a road is not the way to do that. Creating a kick-ass rail system and encouraging more high quality investment along the premier corridor of the city would do all of this and more.

I also think the 42nd St. proposal is silly.

A year ago I would've thought it was silly, but the area through Times Square and Herald Square is 1000 times better now that they have closed off Broadway to vehicular traffic. Now, I know that Woodward has the exact opposite problem that 42nd St. [[or Broadway for 'nerd) in Manhattan had [[having too few people versus having too many), so a project like this would probably be trying to solve a problem that doesn't yet exist in Detroit. But I thought it would be an interesting discussion...

[iheartthed]

But I also think that for this project to not turn into a big mess, there will have to be a tunnel roadway built near or under 42nd St., since it is the major artery connecting the Lincoln Tunnel to the East River bridges.

[hudkina]

A better option would be to reduce the number of traffic lanes, lower the speed limit, and put up more traffic lights. Doing this would make it better for pedestrians and make the road less of a "thoroughfare" and more of a "main street". Between Jefferson and Grand Blvd the Woodward ROW is generally 120 ft. If you have two lanes in each direction that takes up only 48 of the 120 ft. The rest can easily go to LRT, sidewalks, and parking lanes.

[oldredfordette]

Steam tunnels are under Woodward. Beautiful brick ones, too.