Liberate Spring Street!

The Portland Society of Architects will be hosting a (members-only) event on September 20th concerning Spring Street. Check out this page for details. They summarize the situation by saying:

The city planners of the early 1970′s, fueled with Federal money, demolished the core of Portland in an attempt to build a suburban mall downtown. Now we are left with jersey barriers between High and Exchange St and a senseless highway that, except a few skateboarders, is only used by automobiles.

It’s time to fix this six block mistake.

The section of Spring Street that they are interested in liberating is the highway-like area between High Street (where the West End starts) and Middle Street (where the Old Port starts) is highlighted below:

This slightly unpleasant stretch of street was once similar to how it still is further in the West End. This highway-like section was built around the same time as Franklin Arterial and coincided with the construction of the Civic Center and Holiday Inn but also the destruction of several buildings and smaller streets. Although this stretch of road is not as offensive of Franklin Street post-urban renewal, I applaud the Portland Society of Architects for getting the conversation started on how to improve this area. Although it is   early in the process, I look forward to hearing the ideas that they come up with. Read more about this topic in this recent Daily Sun article.

Bridges over Waters

In the not-too-distant future Portland will have two new/reconstructed bridges on opposite sides of the peninsula. To the north, the Martin's Point Bridge that carries Route 1 traffic from Portland to Falmouth is to be reconstructed starting in 2014. To the south, the Veteran's Memorial Bridge which also carries Route 1 but from Portland to South Portland, will be rebuilt starting this summer.

I wasn't around when either of these bridges were built initially, but I doubt that there was as much public participation in the design and planning process back then as there is these days. There have been workshops for the public concerning the new Veteran's Memorial Bridge (I unfortunately wasn't able to attend due to work/school) and the city is looking for members of the public to join a committee for the Martin's Point Bridge reconstruction project.

The Martin's Point Bridge is currently the more pedestrian/bike friendly route, and both bridges promise to be much more accommodating to non-vehicular traffic when they are completed. Maybe it's just the optimistic spring weather getting to me, but I felt like writing a positive post today. I urge everyone to get involved with the design process of these and other infrastructure projects around town.

The Pedestrian Flow (or lack of)

I came across this post on the World Streets blog today, and here is the text I want to breifly discuss:

"One of my great interests is time reallocation in an urban system. All I mean by this is that when I walk across parts of London which I do most weeks it is quite clear that the amount of time I stand still and do not move as traffic hurtles past is very large. I estimate it is about 50% of my journey time. That means that even in a congestion charge best practice world my time is being stolen to reward drivers with time savings. I want the theft halted and the system re-prioritised to reward pedestrians and cyclists."

- John Whitelegg, Editor, World Transport Policy and Practice

I find this to ring very true in not only here in Portland, but in every city that has automobile traffic that I've visited or heard of. At a 'standard' street intersection, a pedestrian is likely to wait an disproportionate amount of time to move in relation to the movement of vehicular traffic.

Before I get a ton of hate mail, I don't think that 'the equation' should be reversed to make it as difficult for cars as it currently is for pedestrians, but I think there is room for improvement in the daily flow of intersections.

The first intersection that comes to mind for improvement is one near my apartment, the intersection of Congress, High, and Free Streets (commonly referred to as Congress Square). High and Free Streets, both being one-way, tend to have an almost endless stream of traffic during busy times. A finer balance of 'walk' times and red lights would make this a more friendly area for pedestrians. There was an article awhile ago in the newspaper about the great art and entertainment scene that has been blossoming for the last several years on Congress Street, west of High Street. One of the owners of an art gallery in the State Theater building said something to the effect of "it's hard to attract the kind of foot traffic on this side of town that the Old Port and the rest of Congress Street attracts, it's like there's an invisible wall." Although they did not seem to make the connection, it is clear that this intersection is an obstruction to pedestrian movement on Congress Street and a few simple redesigns could make a positive difference.

I can not find it anywhere, but I'm pretty sure I saw an idea on Rights of Way a long time ago, in which there few pictures of a slightly redesigned intersection here that eliminated the merge lane from High Street onto Free Street. Simply turning that into a sidewalk and forcing cars going from High to Free Street to do so at the intersection created a great little space and made the intersection much more manageable. Inspiration for such a design can be found in the reclamation of space for pedestrians in New York's Times Square.

By allowing pedestrians some breathing room to cross streets, it would encourage car-free travels and also make city driving more efficient for drivers who currently become enraged the second that a light turns green and a pedestrian has a few feet left to go to to the nearest sidewalk. One thing I never understood about the pedestrian signals at intersections is that they don't have the standard green, yellow, and red signals that vehicles have. There are countless intersections around town that give the steady red stop/don't walk signal to pedestrians when there is clearly enough time to cross the road. At the risk of being arrested for jaywalking (does that happen in Portland? Also, it's sad that most streets are purely designed for the fastest-possible movement of cars even in dense pedestrian environments) I prefer to cross the road before the oncoming traffic's signal turns green in order to avoid waiting in the cold for 5 minutes while people in heated machines cruise by.

I could go on, but I will stop here before I start rambling too much!

Summer Streets

Have you heard of New York City's Summer Streets?

NYC DOT and our partners are proud to present Summer Streets. We will temporarily close Park Avenue and connecting streets from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park to motor vehicles and open it up to people on three consecutive Saturdays in August (August 8, 15, & 22).

I first learned about this interesting event through streetfilms.org, check out a video about the Summer Streets here. Streetfilms is part of the excellent streetsblog network (which this blog is proudly part of).

Could Portland, Maine do something like this? There are currently a couple of events that close down roads here, including the Old Port Fest, which removes cars from most of the Old Port streets, and the Sidewalk Arts Festival, which makes Congress Street a pedestrian only area from Congress Square to Monument Square.

A key aspect to both NYC's Summer Streets and the two events in Portland mentioned above is that not only are the streets car-free, there is also 'stuff to do' besides walking down the middle of the road or not having to look both ways before crossing the street.

I think that Portland could handle a Summer Streets type event several times during the year on Exchange Street, which is a great example of a truly urban street that fits in perfectly with the character of the city. Of course, emergency vehicles and delivery trucks would be let through, but the overall harm of not allowing cars down Exchange Street for every Saturday in August would be minimal and it would be a benefit for the heavy pedestrian traffic in the area. It could even help open up a few people's minds about what new developments (think the Ocean Gateway area and Bayside districts) could be instead of big parking lots and buildings zoned for single uses.

Anyone else want to help me put up some barricades at the top of Exchange Street next Saturday? :-P

Skateboards and Cobblestones

Tip of the hat to the Press Herald, which reported here about the public safety committee's authorization of a plan to put some cobblestone on Exchange Street.

The photo below is from this spring and shows cobblestone on Milk Street, which currently ends where Exchange Street crosses its path.

From what I've gathered, they are going to put patches of cobblestone down which will be even with the current surface. They say it will cost only $6,000 and take two days so I'm thinking the street will remain mostly asphalt.

The main reason for this action is to deter skateboarders from going down Exchange Street and 'scaring tourists.' I have mixed feelings about this, since skateboarding is a healthy and 'green' method of personal transport. The sidewalks will remain brick, and there is the chance that a lack of enforcement of a skateboarding ban on the street will push skateboarders onto the sidewalks. They will also start utilizing the next street over, Market Street, which is a one way which may be more dangerous than cruising down Exchange Street since it is a one way going up the incline.

I don't have anything against with the idea of skateboarding and in a perfect world skateboarders, bikes, and pedestrians could get get the roads and sidewalks all to themselves. The city deserves praise itself for its' (currently under construction?) skate park but it is located off the peninsula and would not attract the skateboarders that hang around down town (I would consider the people who use skate parks to be more 'sport' users than recreational or transportational). I think the fact that that 'the kids' with skateboards tend to hang around this area is also a reminder that there isn't much to do in this town on most nights for the under eighteen crowd. It's a tricky situation.

What are your thoughts?