Time to open more streets
The city's Stay Healthy Streets are an innovative, low-cost way to increase people space by bootstrapping on the existing greenways network. Kudos to the Mayor and SDOT for a creative solution. But as businesses start to re-open, we'll need a much more aggressive approach, one that goes beyond the low-density residential areas and into commercial districts: sidewalk cafes, pedestrian-only zones and more.
Summer starts next week, so the time is now. As the mayor herself said in the aforelinked post, this is a marathon, not a sprint. We have a long summer and fall ahead.
From Boston to Bothell, other cities are taking initiative:
Streeteries are open in Downtown Bothell! In light of the Covid pandemic, the city voted to close a portion of Main Street to vehicle traffic, allowing for more outdoor seating for its downtown restaurants. Looking good @thebinebothell and Alexa's! #bothell #SpacesForPeople pic.twitter.com/gD3FPXXF2c
- Coby Zeifman (@cobycycles) June 17, 2020
At the same time as we're saving our city's restaurants, we could be helping our streets become the kind of places we're jealous of when we travel to the great cities of the world. Boston's North End is becoming a place that makes other cities jealous. HT @berkie1 @BostonBTD pics pic.twitter.com/yyBMqXh2Ik
- Brent Toderian (@BrentToderian) June 13, 2020
Meanwhile, across the country traffic is starting to creep back up.
Holland Tunnel traffic update. 3:55pm. Traffic backed up to Houston Street, several blocks further than previous Fridays. Honking now heard two or three times per minute. Baby, we're back.
- Jason Isaac (@jasonisaacdrums) June 12, 2020pic.twitter.com/vq68inijDb
Seattle #traffic is coming back, along with rain to create a near-normal pattern of congestion this Friday afternoon. pic.twitter.com/WMdtcCw2sg
- Mike Lindblom (@MikeLindblom) June 12, 2020
As traffic rises, emissions are rising too:
Anecdotally, from my daily walks it does seem like there are way more cards on the road and less patience for pedestrians in the streets. As this continues, the political price for opening streets to pedestrians and closing them to cars will continue to rise.
The primary goal here remains to defeat the virus, not to redesign streets. But until there's a vaccine or other treatment, creating more outdoor space for safely gathering is a win-win and the city could be doing more. If you want to go deep on street closures and urban design, Stephen Fesler at The Urbanist has you covered.