What struck me was that it was a wide street, much wider than Nassau Street in Manhattan, maybe as wide as Lower Broadway. I've been on failed pedestrian streets in Albuquerque and Binghamton (and Chicago's State Street, but its failure is debatable), but I think it's pretty much a no-brainer to say that this would work well on some of the streets in Manhattan that already have very heavy foot traffic.

I had a little bit of time to spend in London this morning, but I had only been there twice before and for short periods, so I couldn't really tell whether the congestion charge had improved things. Certainly the pedestrian entrance to Paddington Station could still use some work.

if new york were to close certain streets, or districts, like soho, to automobile traffic, people who drive would simply park in a lot, walk around soho, buy stuff, have lunch somewhere, take their swag back to their cars and drive home. this is no different from what they would have done in their suburbs.

if soho were closed to cars, it would open up tons more space for people to sell more stuff. stuff in soho typically costs more than in other districts, therefore, the amount of taxes paid will be higher - taxes that go to the city to implement the things that we like and need. instead, soho, like every other district is nothing more than a parking lot with sidewalks - sidewalks too small to allow for efficient ingress and egress of shoppers/taxpayers to their beloved stores.

it's a simple f'n equation. i don't even have a business degree and i can figure this out. more shoppers = more money for everyone, including tards like richard brodsky.

Indeed, we have both recommended to de-pedestrianize many ped malls as well as worked to help save many pedestrian malls from being opened to cars. Many malls die due to a lack of management and a lack of capacity to really manage streets and engage communities in their planning -- a major limiting factor here in NYC for pedestrianization. The 3rd Street promenade is one we helped improve with better management.

The temporary closing step would seem to be feasible for many NYC streets.

Tokyo actually pedestrianizes their "5th Ave" every weekend:
http://www.streetsblog.org/2006/06/13/pedestrian-only-fifth-ave/

Hong Kong has developed a program of temporary, partial and full pedestrianization in 10 districts:
http://www.streetsblog.org/2006/09/28/learning-from-a-streets-renaissance-in-hong-kong/

And it was packed, every time I went there.

Let's take one example, 5th Avenue in Brooklyn, which has three major shopping centers along its length in Park Slope, Sunset Park and Bay Ridge. It also has a highly unreliable (due to traffic) but heavily used bus route, the B63. It has bike lanes. And there is a much wider parallel street -- 4th Avenue -- to take any displaced traffic.

Let's say someone were to propose limiting deliveries on 5th Avenue to the early morning hours, widening the sidewalks, and limiting its use to buses and bikes otherwise. That certainly would make life better for the people living over the stores.

How would the merchants, many of them Mom & Pops, react? And how could that be changed? Perhaps a test during summer weekends?

With all due respect and I have nothing against you Larry but I'm getting pretty sick and tired of people using the argument that "since the pedestrians malls of the 1970's failed, modern versions they will fail again." There is one major fault with this argument however that people always forget about.

In the 1970's nobody wanted to go downtown. Abandonment of the cities was still in full swing. The pedestrian malls of the 1970's were used as a last ditch effort to get people back downtown. They failed because the social forces pushing people out of the cities were just too strong for a simple small landscape project to overcome. Plus the shopping centers and indoor malls were all the rage back then.

Today things are vastly different. People want to be in the cities. New York City is the premier example of this in the US. It's also hip and fashionable today to live downtown and shop on Main Street a short walk away. Indoor malls are SOOOOO 1980's. Today cars are definately detracting from the Main St experience that so many people want to be a part of and hindering further economic growth in our downtowns.

Also the simple reason why the pedestrian malls in European downtowns were so successful is because people there never abandoned their towns and cities like we did in the US. My mom's small resort hometown in Germany has just about banned cars from the entire old city and business has thrived. In the 1980's shops that were on streets open to traffic and not a part of the original pedestrian area pushed to have there streets included in the zone and now do MUCH MORE business then before.

However it's also easy to get a vehicle onto these streets when required so I wouldn't suggest the heavily landscaped version show in Tulsa which seems to make emergency and delivery vehicle access difficult. Plus, its Tulsa. No offense but its not NYC.

It never dawned on me to imagine the whole street for people.

For thinking small, I get no holiday gifts this year.

Speaking for myself, I don't go to New Year's Eve celebrations in Times Square because I don't want to stand in a herd for three hours, spend five minutes watching the ball drop, and then another hour trying to make my way (on foot, natch) to the subway to get away. Similar emotions come to mind seeing the photograph at the top of this post.

With proper regional transit and increased hotel capacity, large swathes of Manhattan could be declared car free zones and get more crowded. When is someone going to attack Brodsky as an economic impediment?

Now is when one might make a comment about consumerism, and bring up Reverend Billy, and secretly wish that we had neither too many cars nor the consumer frenzy of Christmas, but I'll settle for improving liveable streets first and then focusing on ratcheting down consumption.

Of course, that assumes you'll have a calm pedestrian experience. Back in 2000 I visited the Portobello Road flea market, and some parts were very crowded and not calm at all. This was in April, nowhere near the Christmas shopping season.

I would love to the London experience written up in the New York dailies.

The question is always whether the businesses will lose for from the lack of drivers than they gain from the increase in pedestrians.

Yes, that's it, and it depends on how many people would choose to drive to the shopping area vs. walk or take transit under both arrangements. In Tulsa, clearly not many people did either when it was a pedestrian street.

London has a critical mass of people who simply do not own cars and would walk, take transit or maybe hop in a cab. It also has a significant population who own cars, but wouldn't drive to Oxford Street anyway. Removing access to private vehicles is not going to alienate them, so any business that can survive on those people alone is going to do fine. Any drivers who switch to transit or walking are additional profit.

In this way, New York is very much like London.