Downtown Crossing/Financial District | Discussion

I wonder if it's counting people who list their address as St. Francis House or another area unhoused service agency.
 
Van, this is what Washington looks like right now, opened to commercial traffic only. Imagine how much worse the condition would be if the street was reopened to all traffic.
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To me, Data, the problem isn't that there are commercial vehicles parked there. To me the problem is that the entire space between the parked cars and the opposite curb is essentially dead space. Pedestrians don't feel it's theirs, and few cars drive through it to animate it.

I'd love to see the grade leveled entirely, maintaining a much-narrowed parking and driving segment that's differentiated only by pavement type. Some strategic and unobtrusive bollards or planters to enhance safety. Don't restrict through-traffic, but don't encourage it either. And, someone else said this on the previous page, make it a BID policy to fill the ground floors with restaurants and cafes, with tables spilling out onto the much widened "sidewalk."
 
data: That reminds me of the Fulton St Mall in downtown Brooklyn. It's the best analogy to DTX (Street View). It's a pretty barren stretch of city even though it has a much more active retain environment. It's just used as a bus plaza which is why there is so much foot traffic and active retail. This area of Brooklyn is e-x-p-l-o-d-i-n-g with new residential highrises like DTX (way more so) and the spillover is changing the nature of the stores on Fulton St.

Removing traffic from a downtown street kills life and this has been proven over and over again. What makes other new pedestrian plazas work is they strike a balance between space for auto traffic and space for people. One or the other doesn't work.

DTX is tough because Washington St is so tight. But the Winter/Summer streets are the perfect place for a public plaza. The problem now is there is so much space for people to walk about that the area isn't properly defined. Adding auto traffic, even just one lane for through traffic and the rest for transit/emergency or loading, would add an energy and define the area better. It's the balance that is needed.
 
Shepard said:
Don't restrict through-traffic, but don't encourage it either.
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But how do you do that? It's easy to say it. How do you do it? If a road is opened to traffic, regardless of how many signs or speed restrictions you set, vehicles will drive down it. It's like water. It will always find a way to get where it wants through the tiniest cracks and jagged indirect routes.

I firmly hold my belief that DTX should be a pedestrian only zone with a flush curb. I think we could have our own (very) mini Stephansplatz if we did it correctly.
 
I live on the Washington Street pedestrian mall, and would say that the problems go way beyond vehicles or no vehicles. Ill-conceived and half-baked from the beginning. There are no destinations on the block between Summer-Winter and Temple - and the Macy's unbroken wall makes it unlikely that side of the street will ever be enlivened. Cities like Burlington VT and Minneapolis, with much worse climates than ours, manage to do it right, but for some reason, Boston imagined just stopping traffic was going to make people want to walk down this section of street. Yeah, I'd love a few sidewalk cafes or a jazz club.
 
You guys seem to have this topic covered but to preach to the converted, Washington Street is a disaster. I've never once - ONCE! - been able to walk down the middle of that street without having to get out of the way of an oncoming car. Is it a pedestrian way or not? (Answer: not.)

Opening it to traffic is the 2nd worst option, only because everyone seems to hate the idea and because it would marginalize (literally) the pedestrians to the sidewalks ... but maybe we should do it anyway? The sidewalks are pretty darn wide there. Who would use the road? Cabs? Delivery trucks? Delivery trucks already use it. Most-likely, I think the people using it would be cars who got lost on Tremont Street and are trying to turn around. Would there be an increase in cars from Chinatown trying to cut "up"town?

The only reason it's not cut off completely to traffic (I think) is because trucks can't make deliveries. Of course, when they first planned the street grid in the 1970s, one proposal was for deliveries to happen behind the buildings on the Common side of Washington - but the road doesn't exist, I don't think, so it would have involved land-taking?

I don't know if we can consider the results of making it a "pedestrian-only" "limited-traffic only" street was successful in any way.

Would anyone really be harmed by opening it to traffic?

Or, we could just go back to the Gruen proposal and add an elevated level for pedestrians.

 
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Fun fact, the Downtown Crossing pedestrian zone actually has really strict access requirements, most of which don't seem to be enforced. Midday (after 11am-6pm) only public works vehicles responding to needs inside the zone (barrels, street sweeping, etc) and public safety vehicles RESPONDING TO AN EMERGENCY are allowed to travel through (might be a few more special cases too). After I found that out I stopped moving out of the way when vehicles that don't fit those criteria tried to go by me.

Also, with the MBTA buses now rerouted off Washington, there is a push to formalize Washington from Franklin to Milk as part of the zone. Not sure of its status though.
 
JohnAKeith said:
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I've been to town centers like that in Germany. It works but only because that type of thing works there. It was still like walking through a space ship. Modern urban planners know the benefit of mixing traffic. Just limit traffic on Washington St with a single travel lane and it will work.
 
I feel like I've seen Washington Street be pretty lively, past few years, with lots of people walking in all directions. Usually during the middle of the day though.

I think people are down on it too much. Not sure why the retail remains blank in so many spots, but fill that in and finish up construction, should be a big improvement.

I do think that converted streets like this can be awkward to pedestrianize and that's probably been a problem historically. It's too wide to make for a comfortable pedestrian street (would prefer under 20 feet -- unless it's really busy). But it's not a piazza either. So what is it?
 
I agree with datadyne. It doesn't work right now because it's not really a pedestrianized street. People stick to the sidewalks because of the uncertainty of automobiles in the street. If it were more strictly enforced (whether by transportation or by retractable bollards or something) the comfort level of pedestrians would improve. Also a flush curb, and more activation of the streetwall would help out.
 
For better or for worse, the private sector--i.e., the dramatic development boom in DTC right now--is driving the changing nature of the pedestrian zone:

--Godfrey Hotel, opening in October right at the southern gateway to the DTC ped zone.

--Roche Bros., anchoring the ped. zone in dead center with the permanent sidewalk cafe on Summer St.

--MTower, set to dictate the Washington St./Franklin St. intersection.

--And when 1 Bromfield goes up, that will set terms for the Washington St./Bromfield St. intersection.

I leave it for others to debate as to whether an alternative dynamic is desired, but clearly, it's private sector-driven right now.
 
Make the curb flush with outdoor retail kiosks on wheels that will go in the middle of the street during restricted driving times. The retail in the middle will help draw people from the sides of the street. If there is an emergency vehicle or city crew they can roll a few feet out of the way.

Also, restrict deliveries to the morning, or designate some drop off area that you can roll a cart from.
 
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Mongo said:
Make the curb flush with outdoor retail kiosks on wheels that will go in the middle of the street during restricted driving times. The retail in the middle will help draw people from the sides of the street. If there is an emergency vehicle or city crew they can roll a few feet out of the way.

Also, restrict deliveries to the morning, or designate some drop off area that you can roll a cart from.
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Interesting, per regulation, the deliveries are restricted to morning. It is simply not enforced.

I LOVE the idea of push carts (active bollards) in the middle of the street from mid-day onward.
 
JohnAKeith said:
Or, we could just go back to the Gruen proposal and add an elevated level for pedestrians.

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About that Gruen proposal, how far down Summer Street would the pedestrian level have extended? Just Chauncy St to Dewey Square (before the then-so-called South Station Tunnel) or all the way to South Station, or beyond? Did this plan include today's Downtown Crossing too?
 
Perhaps a bit of a stretch of the definition of DTX but -- Bonjour

from today's Herald
http://www.bostonherald.com/enterta... pense que je suis en amour avec Paul :cool:
 
If their service is as bad as the one at Assembly Row, this place won't survive for very long.
 
Calling One Boston Place "DTX" is laughable. Government Center, anyone??
 
datadyne007 said:
Calling One Boston Place "DTX" is laughable. Government Center, anyone??
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Is it really that "laughable"? Gmaps pedometer shows it is 400 yards from Macy's/Roche Bros./Corner Mall. A five-minute walk.

More important, though, is that the walk is uninterrupted by any major intersections--until you get just PAST One Boston Place, to State St. There you find the boundary line that naturally separates Downtown Crossing from Government Center. Why anyone would argue against the Court St./State St. axis as being the natural delineation between the Downtown Crossing and Govt. Ctr. realms is utterly beyond me.

Finally, what is Government Center? A neighborhood? Really? Downtown Crossing has a sense of place that many entities want to project and ascribe to. What sense of place does Government Center have? There's no there there. There's a T stop that's been under construction for 2 years, and a place-killing concrete wasteland. So why advocate for it?
 
If anything anywhere close to Washington Street between State and Chinatown, Winter Street, and Summer Street to South Station wants to call itself DTX, I'm not gonna fight them on it.
 
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