Old Town's hasty, half-baked pedestrian zone

Old Town water tower (image courtesy Wikipedia Commons)

BY BRIAN LIBBY

Whether it's in large cities like New York and London or smaller ones scattered across Europe and, increasingly, the US, turning city streets into pedestrian-only areas free of automobile traffic has been an overwhelming success, helping compact urban cores to overcome the noise and traffic problems they weren't designed for and reducing crime through increased pedestrian traffic and visibility.

But creating a socially, economically and aesthetically successful pedestrian zone isn't something you do with police barricades. It's not something you do from 10PM to 3AM on weekend nights. Yet, as Sara Hottman reports in yesterday's Oregonian, this has been the plan for the past eight months, since City Council approved a trial "entertainment zone" that shuts out automobile traffic on a six-block area between NW Second and Third Avenues, Burnside and Everett Street.

The intent is clearly to reduce crime, and in that way, it has been successful. Incidents involving police have dropped by 30 percent. Police also tell Hottman that the absence of traffic also allows them to respond more quickly. And Portland's Finest is clearly out in force during these five-hour weekend windows. "That's always fun at parties," one bargoer sarcastically tells the reporter.

Yet why call it an "entertainment zone" at all? Bar owners are also upset with the corraling off of traffic; they say the barricades bring the feel of a crime scene or a construction zone. And residents are upset with how much extra noise the congregating of people in the street brings.

Had this stretch of Old Town been planned and designed as a pedestrian zone, it could have been much more successful. Residents and businesses could have been involved from the beginning, contributing ideas and critiques. Just as importantly, the city could have invested in the street furniture, lighting, special paving and other elements that would communicate that this isn't just a diversion of traffic but an intent to transform and uplift the neighborhood. City officials, according to Hottman's story, have encouraged the neighborhood to take more ownership of the "entertainment zone," but seemingly have not given them the opportunity to be involved in its creation, nor have they invested in the pysical space itself.

Imagine, for example, if Director Park, the city block behind the Fox Tower downtown turned a few years ago from a surface parking lot into a plaza with a fountain and glass-canopied area with tables and chairs, had only removed the cars from the parking lot and called it a day. Imagine if the city then acted surprised this plot wasn't a popular place for residents and locals to congregate, that the neighborhood didn't take ownership of its barricaded blacktop. Then, when Monday came around, imagine if it went back to being a parking lot for five days, and then the whole cycle began again.

It's not that city officials are wrong about the strategy of reducing crime in this six-block area as a result of blocking traffic. But that anti-crime strategy has to be congruent with the broader, longer-term urban plannning and economic development strategies. Instead, it feels like the city has figured out a band-aid that, while effective, is undermining the long-term health of the affected area. They've created a police lockdown and called it an entertainment zone.

In a more long-term look at Old Town and an attempt at cure, we'd need not just housing but a mix of housing types: not just low-income housing and social services with single-room occupancy flats, but middle class and other levels as well. (Conversely, we probably need less upper-class housing in the adjacent Pearl District and more low-income housing.) We'd also need to do something about the vacant lots. Crime isn't just something that happens when roudy bar patrons act up or idle homeless people search for places to lie down for the night. It's a phenomenon that happens in dark corners where there's no reason for regular pedestrian flow to happen there.

Old Town has made tremendous progress in the daytime. From the University of Oregon's White Stag building at Couch and Naito to the Classical Chinse Garden on Fourth Avenue to scatterings of art galleries, restaurants and creative-industry firms, this is not exactly a destitute area anymore. There have even been experiments at closing off streets to traffic, as has happened south of Burnside near Voodoo Donuts. Yet at night, when the workers and students go home, Old Town still can feel chaotic and not quite safe enough. It's entirely possible, if not outright probable, that a pedestrian zone is the right call here - but a more permanent one that's actually been designed, and designed thoughtfully with community input. When you put up police barricades and call it an entertainment zone, you may intimidate away some of the fist fights and petty crimes, but you've taken a step back in the larger effort to create a livable place.

 

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Comments

[Maccoinnich]

Brian: the Pearl has loads of low income housing (The Sitka, the Yards, the Ramona, Pearl Court, Lovejoy station...) and more is under development. The median income for the Pearl is actually lower than the City as a whole. Granted, these buildings are not homeless shelters, but the (widely held) perception that the Pearl is exclusively an upper class playground is completely wrong.

Otherwise - great article!

[Acseger]

It's interesting that this appears to be much less successful than the Granville St closures in Vancouver. Relative density, perhaps? The greater metro areas are about the same (2.1 million vs 2.3) and the demographics who show up are about the same: fratty suburban folks seem like the majority.

Here's a recent article on improving Granville:
http://www.vanmag.com/News_and_Features/Granville+Street?page=0%2C0

[David Dysert]

I agree a purposeful designed "zone" would be preferable to temporary barricades. But the city has no intention of shutting down these streets permanently. They want to temper the negative effects of the late night activity.
The emphasis on design while important is largely not the issue in this part of town. Yes we need more economically diverse housing--of course! But it's not an accident it's not there. This area is an intense concentration of social services and late night partying. And while the social services are very important they need to be dispersed over a greater geography for this area to be developed to its full potential. It is the uses not the design that will determine the future of this area. Instead of the city spending millions on Burnside/Couch or other infrastructure design, we should spend money on economic assistance for business to locate here and social services to relocate to underserved areas of the city. The "entertainment zone" is located here precisely because of the vacuum of development. It is not the problem (beyond the public safety issues). Spending money on a designed entertainment zone is putting the cart before the horse. We need to get the mix of uses right first. If we do, we are likely to find the "entertainment" has left the area for a more accommodating part of town.