Adding car-free spaces is great as long as it’s part of a much deeper movement.
Photo of Richard Hurd on Flickr.
Last weekend, the editorial staff of the Wisconsin State Journal published their second article of the year urging the city of Madison to turn State Street into a pedestrian mall. The idea, first published by the State Journal in late January, is that restaurants and businesses can use the sidewalk space for alfresco boutiques and for dining on the patio when pedestrians are the full width of the street rather than just the current one Can use sidewalks, both of which are safer during the COVID-19 era. Over time, the city can restructure the entire street to make it a pleasant pedestrian destination by adding trees and hanging lights over them. The idea gained enough popularity and awareness that Tom Lynch, the city’s director of transportation, was forced to address it specifically at the final meeting of the Transportation Policy & Planning Board. You can see a summary of the limitations and justice issues outlined here, or follow the entire discussion if you feel like it (it starts at 1:19:00 PM).
Not surprisingly, readers responded “overwhelmingly positive” to this suggestion, as the State Journal notes. We are at the end of a long winter and entering the second year of a pandemic that has kept most of us at home. The idea of enjoying a burger somewhere on a terrace is absolutely exquisite. In addition, car-free spaces are wonderful. They’re quieter, safer, and cleaner. It is comforting for our animal brain to be separated from car traffic. This is why affluent neighborhoods typically set back from busy roads.
I love having a beer and a snack on a restaurant terrace and have spent countless happy hours around the square over the years. I’m also a big advocate of car-free and car-light spaces. Reducing car traffic is not only a must for the environment, it would do a lot to our collective safety and quality of life if there were fewer cars on the streets of Madison. In times of no pandemic, I also spend a lot of time on State Street. I’ve been working near the square for almost eight years.
After all, I should be looking forward to a pedestrian promenade. But the plan that the Wisconsin State Journal is championing with heads of state like District 4 Alder Mike Verveer is faltering. It might be tempting to view this plan as a small step toward the auto-lighting utopia that many of us in Madison crave, or as the natural culmination of decades of efforts to give downtown Madison an attractive, pedestrian-friendly high street. In reality, however, it is a public space giveaway for private companies at the expense of the modes of transport that enable car-light and car-free spaces – buses and bicycles.
In fact, the most obvious practical objection to the plan right now is that it is unclear what will happen to cyclists when State Street becomes a pedestrian promenade. State Street is a major cycle route with no obvious alternative – and certainly not an alternative that feels as safe and comfortable as State Street, as it is already car-free and prohibited from motor vehicles other than buses, taxis, and delivery trucks. Pedestrians and bicycles can mix, but as anyone who has tried driving around the Library Mall on a busy afternoon can testify, it’s not always easy. Aside from pedestrians, State Street was barricaded at several intersections last summer during the Streatery program cited by the State Journal as evidence of the promenade idea’s potential. I had to get off my bike and move a barricade to get further to the square.
The real logistical problem of relocating bus routes off State Street appears to be less of a problem. As the Wisconsin State Journal points out, we already divert buses off State Street for a number of events each year. Routing buses off State Street all the time could even remove some unpredictability for drivers. Moving the actual bus stops, however, is a different story. State Street has some of the nicest bus stops in Madison. You are in well-lit areas that are usually home to many other people and businesses, where you can window-shop or even have a coffee while you wait for your bus. Since there are already few cars on State Street, these bus stops are more comfortable than standing next to a busy street with cars speeding by. Switching bus routes to the exclusion of State Street may be easy, but the quality of the existing bus infrastructure is not. If we want to increase the number of bus drivers, these things are actually important.
But my concerns go beyond logistical issues. It is deeply unfair to toss cyclists and bus drivers out of one room in order to create a beautiful pedestrian promenade that people can get to in their cars. Thank you for choosing public transport! Hope you enjoy standing near the rush hour cars down Johnson Street while you wait for your bus.
Certainly many people would still come to the pedestrian zone on foot, by bike or by bus. We do know, however, that many more people will be driving and parking there, especially given that State Street is attractive to visitors outside of the city – as the State Journal’s latest editorial on the subject notes, “People here generally know how to get them. ” to State Street and where to park. “If the city doesn’t deal more holistically with cars and parking lots in the inner city, the pedestrian zone could lead to an unhealthy contradiction.
The conversation also stinks of a special NIMBYism towards buses, not least thanks to the contribution of the former mayor and current isthmus columnist Dave Cieslewicz. Cieslewicz’s comments on “the noise and smell of the buses” – something that probably any decent city with outdoor restaurants will have to grapple with, and which is probably less of a problem as the city puts more electric buses on the streets – remind me of my time on the board of directors of the Marquette Neighborhood Association listening to Jenifer Street residents complain about buses idling near their homes. Later, when Jenifer Street was under construction and buses were being diverted to Willy Street, it was the turn of Willy Street companies to grieve over the loss of free parking for their customers and unruly bus drivers near their stores. The irony of the people whose primary mode of transportation is a personal vehicle complaining about the noise and pollution of public transportation is old. Nor should we pretend that antipathy towards buses is not often associated with racism and hostility towards the homeless.
That brings me to my final concern about the State Street boardwalk map. Just two years ago, Downtown Madison Inc. and Alder Verveer wrestled endlessly over the runaway “party” on State Street. Philosopher’s Grove, an interactive piece of art that people could sit in, was removed because it encouraged the loitering of people who were apparently undesirable to the State Street business set. Hostile works of art were installed in places where people rested. But now the State Street alarmists want it to look more like Pearl Street in Boulder, Colorado?
We should not be under any illusions as to whose pleasure this giveaway in our public space is intended. It will be for people who can pay to be there. All others are taken out of sight. In fact, I assume that this is part of the reason for wanting to move the buses in the first place. We’d hate it if the outside towers saw shoddy office workers and homeless men sitting around a bus stop.
This half-hearted State Street boardwalk idea comes at a time when more and more Madison residents are eager to make more parts of the city car-light and car-free, more equitable and accessible to all. In some ways, the Wisconsin State Journal editorials feel like a cheap imitation of the rich and visionary conversation we could have. So I think we should resist the allure of a pedestrian promenade as a tourist attraction, especially at the expense of critical modes of transport. We deserve more than a short gimmick aimed at attracting suburban families, and we can do better than a downtown neighborhood with all the glitz and depth of Hilldale Mall.
From neighborhood traffic committees to bus and bike advocacy groups, hundreds of people in Madison are already deeply invested in the kind of questions the pedestrian proposal raises and the kinds of changes it merely mentions. That the Wisconsin State Journal could create so much excitement over an idea that means “less traffic, more patio tables” is a sign for all of these groups to come up with their own grand visions. People are ready to hear them.
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