Time Square area of Broadway to become pedestrian mall?

Boylston would be the one street I would like to see widen(ain't going to happen). It should be two ways. It is from Dalton west. This would take a tremendous amount of pressure off the back bay.

On the other hand I would like to see Temple and West made traffic free and extend the Summer St pedestrian mall towards south station, or at least reduce the street width substantially. Pedestran mall have to be the same height as the existing sidewalk. Winter St is and people walk the whole width. Summer St isn't and people tend to say off the street portion

There are may streets that were built as two ways that are now one way and could use narrower road bed and wider sidewalks - E Berkley and Dartmouth in the south end for instance.

I think one of the best places would be to remove at least lane and maybe two would be from Tremont St between Park to Marginal and widen the side walks, on the city side by the common and both sides of the street after Boylston.

Charles St is another great candidate for narrow street/wider sidewalks.

Some day A/B should think about meeting on a regular basis and master planning the city
 
Weren't they going to try this with Hanover St? What ever happened to that? Oh right, Menino.
 
I think there were recent plans for streetscaping DT Crossing that involved pedestrianizing a lot of the little streets between Washington and Tremont.

Boylston is too wide and essential for traffic for this to be contemplated on.

In fact, I get nervous jitters thinking about downtown Buffalo when pedestrianization schemes get too bold. The city, like many, banned cars from its main downtown street in the 1970s, and today it's virtually deserted. Although the desertion was obviously caused by other factors as well, there is strong advocacy for turning the street back over to limited auto use, if only to increase convenience to local businesses and to impart a sense of "busyness" to the street again.

I think Times Square will miss that as well. Streaming (or honking) traffic was always part of the landscape there. It's part of the excitement of urban life, particularly in North America. What works for a 16 foot wide medieval street in Italy won't always work best here.

Whatever happened to compromise solutions like the woonerf, where cars are allowed to tread (slowly) on streets essentially designed to maximize pedestrian utility?
 
This may be a stupid question, but is Landsdowne St. open to vehicle traffic?
 
Anyone else seen the proposal to turn 42nd Street into a pedestrian walkway, as well?

What about Commonwealth Ave, between Kenmore and Packard's Corner?
 
I was walking down the Rose Kennedy Parkway last evening around 10 PM on my way to a campaign meeting and there was so much traffic on both sides. Certainly not an "urban oasis" by any means.

A couple months ago, I was with my brother-in-law, and he was whining about how he had heard that they were now going to be building buildings on the Greenway, and how he wasn't surprised that they were already talking about "ruining" it.

I told him that these buildings had been approved as part of the plan, all the way back to the 90's, but he didn't care about facts. He was sure the state and city were just building on the grass as a way to make money or to ruin the strip of grass.

w/e!
 
JohnAKeith said:
Anyone else seen the proposal to turn 42nd Street into a pedestrian walkway, as well?

What about Commonwealth Ave, between Kenmore and Packard's Corner?
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That would directly contradict the CAP project which cut the sidewalk in half.
 
Why not pave the streets with something bumpy that slows cars down, like real cobble stones or stippled cast block, and have both cars and pedestrians share the road at lower speeds. You know, like in most of the old cities in Europe. Rather than banishing cars for some half baked pedestrian fantasy which never really works out, and pushes all the traffic onto several other streets thus expanding the problem.

Traffic center arteries are sometimes necessary, that's why avenues were invented. Regular streets should remain a shared agreement between neighbors as Mr.Kahn pointed out.
 
It's not just about the cars. I read that a lot of the companies in the area are concered about the crowds. It's very difficult for their employees and visitors to get to work. Don't forget a good percentage of the people are taking pictures and posing for pictures in the middle of the sidewalk.
 
Don't forget a good percentage of the people are taking pictures and posing for pictures in the middle of the sidewalk.
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The tourorists have won.
 
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