Pedestrian Dead Zones

Image via Wikipedia

Just because you build nice wide sidewalks and create a barrier between cars and pedestrians (such as trees) does not mean you will create an environment that conducive to pedestrian activity. To create pedestrian activity you need to have someplace to walk to but also reduce the number of barriers that exist to actually using those sidewalks to get somewhere.

Despite its very long blocks, there is some good pedestrian activity in downtown Salt Lake City from North Temple to about 350 South. If you travel any farther south than that you will see a remarkable decrease in the number of pedestrians. There is several causes of this drop off in pedestrian activity and I will cover some of the major ones in this posting.

Since Main Street is home to the TRAX light rail line I will start off at the corner of 400 South and Main. On the northwest corner of the intersection with have a court house. Court houses tend not to foster pedestrian activity because they are a single point destination, in other words people may go to the court house but that is the only reason they head there.

They are currently expanding the court house to take up most of the block from Main Street to West Temple. This will create a large barrier to pedestrian activity in the area. With court houses becoming even more fortified these days this makes court houses even more unfriendly toward pedestrian activity these days.

Here is a picture of the current court house looking north:

Here is a picture looking south diagonally from corner of 400 South and Main toward the corner of 500 South and West Temple.

Does this look like a thriving pedestrian and transit friendly downtown area or does it look like a parking lot of a suburban office park? This block of parking is made worse because of Salt Lake City's extremely long blocks. To the left of the picture is the Court House TRAX station and on the next block at State Street is another court house.

There is apparently a long story involving this parking lot barrier that covers the block between 400 South, 500 South, Main and West Temple. Despite all the opportunities that exist for development of this block with a TRAX station at the front door this lot will most likely stay as it is for the foreseeable future.

Once you walk pass the parking lot you face a new barrier for pedestrians-the 500 South and 600 South speedways to Interstate 15:

However, it is not three and four lanes of speeding cars that create a barrier to creating an effective pedestrian environment, it is the development that has occurred along the two streets. Because 500 South and 600 South are the two primary access streets to Interstate 15, the area along the two streets have become lodging row.

You would think that lodging facilities would want to foster pedestrian activity in the area but instead most lodging facilities are designed on two principles:

1. Everyone will arrive by car so there is no need to create effective pedestrian access points.
2. Especially if the lodging facility has on sight restaurants, the goal is to ensure the people staying at the facility only use their restaurants or have to get in their car and try to find parking if they want to eat somewhere else.

If you look at the picture above, you will notice that there is no pedestrian access point from the building in the picture to street level. This building is the Little America Hotel that covers all of the block with its sister property the Grand America Hotel taking up half of the block on the far side of Main Street (there is some irony that the Grand America was home to Railvolution back in 2005).

The next two pictures show the main entrance of both hotels on Main Street. While there is some pedestrian access to both hotels it is design more to foster getting guests between the two facilities than actually create any pedestrian activity on Main Street.

To be fair, the Little America does have a pedestrian entrance to its restaurant on Main Street about halfway between its main entrance and 500 South but it appears that there is few people that use it since pedestrian traffic on this section of main street is non-existent.

South of 600 South you have there is some areas of abandoned or barely used businesses and past 700 South you encounter several car dealerships including the Mark Miller Toyota Sprawl lot that completely kills most pedestrian activity in this neighborhood.

Heading back north we move one block west to West Temple and you have the only access point to the Little America from West Temple and as you can see from the picture it is not exactly pedestrian friendly:

To be fair to the Little America/Grand America hotels, they are not the only culprits as the Embassy Suites at 600 South and West Temple shows with its very small sidewalk providing the only pedestrian access to the hotel:

In fact I all of the hotels except for Motel 6, had very poor to no pedestrian access points to the hotel. This next photo is back at 500 South looking south toward 600 South with the Little America on the left. As you can see the east side of West Temple has the right elements for pedestrians, there is just too many barriers to using it.

Finally you look back toward downtown, so close yet so far away.

You can build sidewalks and put trees in to create an environment that should foster more pedestrian activity, but if development or the lack of it and street design creates barriers to pedestrians all sidewalks in the world will not encourage people to use them.

Related articles

• Do we need TOD Certification that goes beyond LEED Certification (transitinutah.blogspot.com)

Perils for Pedestrians Video

Here is another Perils for Pedestrians Video.

Salt Lake to let street lights go dark...

Image via Wikipedia
In a move to save money the city of Salt Lake when a mid block street light goes out, it will not be replaced. Folks in the Avenues, a section of Rose Park, and the downtown area will not have to worry about being in the dark as those mid street lights will be maintained.

The only news source that even mentions this is KSL:

Salt Lake City to save money by letting some street lights go dark

I love the comment by Salt Lake Transportation Director Jim Harpst "Homes and businesses should live their outside lights on". Well that is all find and dandy for the homeowners and businesses but what about pedestrians and transit riders?

This move will clearly make it less safe to walk the streets of Salt Lake City. Street lights make it more inviting to walk around after dark. This becomes even more critical when winter approaches and darkness arrives much earlier in the day.

The only good news is that because of how long a typical streetlight should last we will not see the full effects of this for a few years.

Then again maybe those Salt Lake City pedestrians and transit riders should face the same early 20th century conditions that many in the rest of county enjoy. Just remember to carry a big flashlight...

Perils for Pedestrian Video

Image by Serge Melki via Flickr
I has been a few months since I posted one of these videos so I decided to was time.

This episode is from Paris, France. It is interesting to see the city of Paris which we think as a more pedestrian and transit friendly city still has its own problems that create problems for pedestrians.

Also some great information on the bicycle sharing program that has been going on in Paris. Like anything it has its troubles but overall the program has been working well. There is also some good comments on the usually comments you get when you attempt to take away parking.

The video also shows you how simple the bicycle sharing program is.

Perils For Pedestrians Paris

Related articles by Zemanta

• Paris: from tyranny of taxis to city of bikes (theglobeandmail.com)
• Picturing a Car-Free Seine: The New Vision for the Paris Waterfront (streetsblog.org)

Pedestrian Friendly??

During the elections last year, Holladay City Councilperson Pat Pignanelli promoted that she had made walking and cycling easier in the area by getting a sidewalk put in near a park and also said that bicycle lanes were making it safer for kids to get to school on Spring Lane.

So is the area more pedestrian friendly now? Or is it more propaganda for a politician trying to get elected but is doing little make the community less pedestrian hostile?

I decided to take a walk with the area and take some pictures of the good, bad and very ugly when it comes to pedestrian friendly in the Holladay area.

We will actually start this journey in Murray at 900 East and the Van Winkle Superspeedway for bad drivers, I mean Van Winkle Expressway. This first photo is looking east across 900 East. As a pedestrian not only are you faced with trying to cross a wide street but you face doing it in a non-existent crosswalk and deal with drivers turning right who rarely look for pedestrians.

In addition the Beehive Academy is just to the left out of the picture so there is a large number of children who have to navigate this area.



Next we start our walk down Murray-Holladay Road which looks very attractive with a nice grassy area and trees between the pedestrian and the speeding vehicles. While the speed limit is 35 mph down the section of Murray-Holladay from Van Winkle to 1300 East, many drivers travel far beyond that speed.

As you can see we are approaching a problem in the sidewalk.


In front of an office building, there is a jog in the sidewalk. While this may be no problem for many people, for anyone who has a disability especially those that are in wheelchairs, this creates a hazard they have to navigate.


Getting closer to 1300 East we continue to have a barrier between the pedestrian the street although the sidewalk is narrow and so is the barrier. In addition you have several homes that have large walls put up that create another feeling of unfriendliness for the pedestrian.


As you can see from the next photo after you cross 1300 East the barrier disappears and you are right next to speeding traffic. As can be seen from the photo Murray Holladay can be a very busy road and this photo was taken during a quiet part of the day.


Now we enter the area where Pat Pignanelli proudly proclaimed that she put in a sidewalk so it is more pedestrian friendly. First you encounter this hill with speeding vehicles including trucks and buses to your left and this slope to your right. During winter it would easy to slip and fall down the hill and if you needed to make a quick move you would have no choice but to dive down the rocky slope.

As you get closer to a park, the road flattens out but then you have this wall that creates another barrier and despite the presence of the sidewalk, there is nothing between you and speeding cars and trucks. Of course when I took these photos it had to be one of the most quiet times I have ever seen on Murray-Holladay Road, but you can get an impression on how bad the situation could be with more traffic.


Once again you have another spot where the pedestrian is forced to alter course.

Here is another shot that shows that you may put in a sidewalk but it does not make it pedestrian friendly.

Now we turn off of Murray-Holladay Road and on to 1665 East that becomes Kings Row Driver.

At the corner of 1665 East and Murray Holladay sits a popular park. However, apparently not popular enough to put in a sidewalk.


Now as it becomes Kings Row, the road is more pedestrian friendly but don't let the speed bumps fool you. They are not there to make things better for pedestrians but to slow down people who would speed through the neighborhood at high speed because it goes all the way to 1300 East.


If fact here is the intersection of Kings Row and 1645 East. As you can see there is speed bumps but no crosswalks to make the area more pedestrian friendly.


Now here is a view looking down Fieldcrest Lane. While the sidewalks are a little too narrow, a pedestrian feels more at ease down this street since cars are going slower and there is real sidewalks and medians between the sidewalk and the automobile lanes. However, you only go a couple of blocks and all sidewalks disappear.


The next photo shows what happens when you are not careful when planting trees. If a developer is just trying to build n' burn they will quickly plant trees and move on. If the trees are not buried far enough in the ground the roots will spread out and damage the sidewalk making it unsafe for pedestrians and eventually the trees are cut down to stop the damage.

Further west on Kings Row there is more speed bumps but you also have the ball field for St. Vincent De Paul Catholic School. Here there is a cross walk with a speed bump. Hopefully this slows down the drivers so that the children are in less danger than they would other wise be.


However, just up the road at 1300 East you have an extremely dangerous intersection. Despite the school being right behind me in the photo, there is no crosswalks marked at this intersection. Many times I have seen people almost hit because people making left and right turns onto Kings Row from 1300 East will not look for pedestrians.

In addition Kings Row has a slight summit then comes down to 1300 East. People often get passed the last speed bump (show above) then speed toward 1300 East and will often go partially into the intersection before they stop.



Here is a car making a right turn onto Kings Row. While these people did, often times drivers will not look for pedestrians and will nearly hit people trying to cross the road.

Next down at 1300 East and Spring Lane we have another problem intersection. While this one has had a light for about 5 years now, people turning off of 1300 East have this wall to the right and will often not slow down to check for pedestrians are in the crosswalk or trying to cross. In addition right turning drivers have to worry about something rear ending them because people are too impatient to wait for a car to make the right turn onto Spring Lane.


Finally we have Spring Lane itself. Here we have another one of those "feel good" projects that do little to increase pedestrian (and in this case) bike safety. What was the parking lanes along Spring Lanes have been stripped as bicycle lanes.

However while not present in the photo, there is often cars parked in the lanes which requires bicycles to go into traffic. In addition there many parts of Spring Lane have no sidewalks so both pedestrians and bicycles are forced into traffic.


As can be seen from these photos, just because you put down some concrete for a sidewalk does not make an area pedestrian friendly. Our communities need to be more pedestrian and bicycle friendly in order to make them more livable. In addition it is hard to get people to try transit when they have to risk their lives just getting to the bus stop.

It is not the responsibility of the transit system to make it easier to get to the bus stop but the city or jurisdiction. They need to ensure that transit riders can get to the bus stop and ride. This will not only benefit transit but the city as well.

Perils for Pedestrian Video

I haven't posted one of these in a couple of months so here is one covering events happening in Maryland including pedestrian facilities on new bridges. There is also a section talking about the proposed Purple line in the Washington DC Area.

Perils for Pedestrian Video

Here is another perils for Pedestrian Video.

This video covers the complete streets legislation that has been blogged about over the last few months. The video also features the city of Davis, California which was the first to reach platinum level with the League of America Bicyclists.

Blog Entries of Note...

Image by Amber Rhea via FlickrFrom the Mobilizing the Region Blog:

Where the Sidewalk Continues…

In September 2006, NJ Gov. Jon Corzine launched a five-year, $74 million statewide pedestrian safety initiative that included money for several NJDOT pedestrian safety programs, traffic calming infrastructure, “traffic-stat” technology, and increased inter-agency coordination. Two years in, the results are visible around the state.

This is what we need in Utah, a program to improve pedestrian safety.

From the Xing Columbus Blog:

62 New Bike Racks Installed in Past Three Months

Columbus, Ohio has installed a large number of bike racks around their city recently. One of the problems many bicyclist face is the lack of facilities to park their bikes. The next time you are out see how often you see bike racks available.

From the Overhead Wire Blog comes:

Pushy SF1

Another great entry from the Overhead Wire about so called free market and new urbanism.

From Streetsblog LA:

Metro Making Room for Bikes on Their Trains

Metro in Los Angeles actually banned bicycles during rush hour periods but is now reversing itself and doing the same thing as UTA: removing seats from trains to give more room for bicycles.

Transportation for America Launches Legislative Campaign

Campaign to improve transit and rail infrastructure.

From the Steve Munro Blog:

Diesels, Not Hybrids, At Least For Now

Back when UTA implemented the fuel surcharge people scream why doesn't UTA buy more Hybrid buses (UTA currently has three in the fleet). In Toronto, they have decided to order more diesel buses because the batteries are only lasting a quarter of the time they were supposed to.

From the Orphan Road Blog:

Parking Ruins Everything

Some interesting information about a couple of different boroughs in New York.

Perils for Pedestrian Video Number 10

Here is another Perils for Pedestrian Video.

Perils for Pedestrian Video

Here is another Perils for Pedestrian Video. The segment I really like from this one is the second part that talks with a planner who discusses the what makes an good walkable neighborhood.

The other two segments deal with bicycling including a bicycle advocate from Sacramento.

Broadway in New York gets makeover...

For a look at what is happening in New York to help make things easier and more convinient for bicycles and pedestrians, take a look at this article from Streetsblog:

Eyes on the Street: A Walk Down Broadway Boulevard

Perils for Pedestrian Video

Here is another one of the Perils for Pedestrian Videos.

This was the 12th episode of the series (there is more hundreds).

The third segment talks about problems with people in crosswalks and with cars stopping for them. The person mentions that sometimes one car will stop and others will go around them. A family we know in Spokane the mother and her children were crossing in crosswalk on a two lane road. The cars stopped in both directions. A driver went around the stopped cars and hit them. Because the driver was elderly she was not prosecuted despite making an illegal passing maneuver.

Every time one of these incidents happen in Spokane there is some Paramedic that always writes a letter to the editor statement that the solution would be to eliminate pedestrian rights. Then he mentions cities such as Jacksonville, Florida as shining examples of cities were pedestrians don't have right of way. Jacksonville, Florida is not exactly a city I would hope up as an example of a livable city. Besides the issue automobiles not obeying the laws.

The fourth section of the video talks about about the abuse of handicap parking permits.

The fifth section is another one I really like. It talks about how little things like painting lines in the proper places can make a big difference for pedestrians.

Blog Posts of the week...

Image via Wikipedia Here are the blog posts that I found interesting this week:

From a new blog simply called Light Rail Transit comes this entry:

Economic Impact of Light Rail - Dallas, Texas

Good information on how properties appreciated around DART line at a faster rate than those not close to a DART line.

From the blog Track Twenty Nine comes this entry:

"History's Gonna Change"

The author talks about the movie Back to the Future (a favorite of mine), and how the changes in the town square from 1955 to 1985 and on to 2015. While the movie was actually shot on the Universal back lot (the entire town area burned to the ground in their recent fire, to does a good job of showing the decline of downtown and its rebirth.

From the Overhead Wire comes a story about Los Angeles Rail ridership being up:

Rail Ridership in LA Up Again

What is interesting is that Los Angeles may be voting in may for to increase taxes for more rail lines. Of course the Bus Riders Union is opposed along with the areas usually cast of transit haters. Just put things in perspective, the Blue Line between Los Angeles and Long Beach is carrying 86, 000 passengers per day.

From the Streetsblog Los Angeles Blog comes these:

Transit Stimulus Bill Needs Co-Sponsors in Senate

Wiki Wednesday: Urban Bicycling With Children

From the Smart Growth Around America Blog comes this entry:

Poor sidewalks, bikeways and transit service a barrier for older Americans seeking relief from high gas prices

Interesting post, I have several neighbors who should not be driving but do to how pedestrian unfriendly my area can be most of them have to drive.

From the Seattle Transit Blog:

Central Link Tukwila Live Wire Testing

It is nice to see something about to happen in Seattle. The company I was working for at the time temporarily had me living in Seattle when the vote for this project took place and that was 1996. Long time to wait for progress. Look what Salt Lake has done in that time!

But 100,000 hours is a lot of buses

Sound Transit in the Seattle area provides regional service while the the counties and one city in the Puget Sound region provide for local service. With a tax measure going to the voters in November, some are wanting more buses now instead of light rail in the future. The Seattle Transit Blog has some good answers to this.

From the Planetizen Blog:

Walkable Neighborhood Grocers

This is an excellent posting about how important walkable grocery stores are to making a walkable city.

From the CTA Tattler in Chicago:

Dire Straits band rides the Red Line to Wrigley for a game

What, you mean they didn't ride in their luxury motor home?

That's it from this week.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Metro's Ridership Numbers Break Records Again

Perils for Pedestrians

Here is another Perils for Pedestrians video.



The first part of the video talks about a pedestrian right of way along the main line of the Union Pacific Railroad in Salem Oregon. Here you have a new trail along with a major rail line coexisting side by side.

The second section of the video discusses new pedetrian bridges over an interstate highway in South Carolina. The video mentions how people attempted to cross the freeway before there was a bridge (sounds like the Layton tragedy from a few months ago).

The third section of video talks with a traffic engineer from Rockville, Maryland who talks about the lack of ways to measure pedestrian safety and how they came up with a system to do it.

Granite Block in Sugar House

Image via WikipediaPlanners put off decision on Granite Block development

More information about the Granite Block in Sugar HGouse. One of the things I dislike about the project is that it would put a parking garage entrance on 2100 South were many people walk. How many pedestrians have almost been hit by idiot drivers who fly out of those parking garage entrances without looking for pedestrians?

Plus we know that smaller business will not be able to afford this development and we will end up with more generic chain stores. Of course with retailers hurting in the present economy, what are the prospects for all these new retailers to come in?

While this is a Federal problem instead of a local problem, there needs to be something done about how the tax depreciation right off occurs for developments. As I have stated before it encourages new construction that is only designed to last until the depreciation is over with (7 years) then the developer is gone.

Now if the tax right off would encourage reuse of older buildings and longer depreciation schedules that don't encourage the build and run, we would start see better and longer lasting developments.

VICTORY against the NIMBY's!!

Image via WikipediaI was preparing to do another Perils for Pedestrians video when I received a Google alert that the State Supreme Court ruled against the NIMBY group in Draper.

Utah Supreme Court rules for TRAX in Draper rail-siting dispute

This is great news for everyone but the NIMBY minority, and now we can have an effective TRAX line through the Draper area.
Next here is another Perils for Pedestrian Video's.

The one thing that caught my attention in this video was making a Dairy Queen in Nebraska more pedestrian friendly. As anyone who tried to get to a fast food restaurant anywhere in the country will now that they are designed for people to arriving and depart by automobile. In most cases the pedestrian be damned. Even in areas that are supposed to be pedestrian friendly fast food places are not very pedestrian friendly.

Of course it is not just fast food places. One of the most pedestrian unfriendly businesses is the post office. Until recently the post office did not have to obey local zoning ordinances so they built their buildings any way they wanted to and they were built supporting the automobile but not pedestrians. When I lived in Sandy I would always used the Midvale Post Office because it was just a couple of doors down from the TRAX station were I would catch my bus after riding TRAX from Historic Sandy. This Post Office has no pedestrian access at all, I had to use part of the main driveway to access the building and almost got hit a couple of times.

The video also has interesting information about what is happening in the Washington DC area and Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

Pedestrian Series Features Toronto...

GO Transit MP40_001
Originally uploaded by Nikon Norm

This episode of Perils for Pedestrians features information from what is happening in Toronto, Ontario.

One of the features of the video is talking about GO Transit which has recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. If you look at the picture you will see a ten car train of Bombardier cars similar to the ones now in service on FrontRunner. Consider that this single train can carry 1200 passengers and they are at capacity.

The picture also includes one of GO's new MP40 locomotives. While similar to the ones bought by UTA, these have a higher horsepower rating so that they can run 12 car trains with a capacity of 1440 SEATED passengers.

Another Pedestriam Safety Video

Another of the video series on Pedestrian Safety including stories from Philadelphia.

One of the pieces is on Columbus, Ohio were children are bussed a single block due to the roads being so dangerous.

Video Series on Pedestrian Safety

This is one of a series of videos on Pedestrian Safety. This one deals with an program being done down in Orlando, Florida plus what is being done in a few other cities. There is a section about Greenville, South Carolina which mentions putting sidewalks into areas that don't have them especially around schools (listen up Holladay). It is long at 28-minutes but does provide some ideas that could be implemented here in the Salt Lake region or lessons we should learn. I will post more of this series in the future.

Ultimate Speed Bump

I want to thank the Urbification Blog for referring to this video. Now if only they will allow these in the Salt Lake region!!