Why Mid-Block Crosswalks Can Make a Village
Despite the pandemic, the great urban centres of Victoria have been able to maintain a solid base of foot traffic. To be clear, I am not saying that businesses in these spots have not been severely impacted by the pandemic, but from just walking through them, you can feel that they have been able to maintain a higher level of traffic. These vibrant places compare drastically to so many areas in the city that have been gutted by the loss of both the downtown office workers and tourists, not to mention those Victoria residents that have rightly been trying to stay close to home.
Even during the latest public health orders, if you walked through LoJo, the 700 Block of Fort Street, or Chinatown there have been people there: sitting outside at a café; waiting to go into a store; or maybe sitting on a bench next to the road. People seem drawn to these areas over other spots in the city. Why is that? For one, all three of these areas has a large amount of small commercial spaces and as I have said previously, this is a key ingredient for a successful shopping space. But wait, there are lots of place in town where there are lots of little stores and yet they have not been able to maintain the same level of vibrancy as you see in these three examples. I think that a second key ingredient to these and many other shopping districts is an easy pedestrian flow. That doesn’t necessarily mean wide sidewalks where everyone keeps to their side and people can move quickly along in one direction. No, what I mean is an easy way to cross the street.
To understand the issue, it can be useful to look at a problem street rather than where it works. As I said the 700 block of Fort is a busy block full of stores, but the 800 block and 1000 block and to a lessor degree the 900 block are also full of little stores, they are not however, nearly as busy. I think that a major reason for them not being as busy is that they do not have mid-block crosswalks like the 700 block does. This means that going to multiple places on different sides of the street is more challenging. You can 'jaywalk’, but Fort Street is not a safe street to do this on, especially as you get closer to Cook Street because the current design leads to ever increasing vehicle speeds as you go east of Blanshard Street.
This problem was presented to me so clearly the other day when my partner and I and our son in his stroller, walked over to the 1000 block of Fort to do two things, get a coffee at Picnic and to shop at Luna Collective. Arriving at Vancouver and Fort Street, but having missed the walk signal to cross to the south side, I turned east only to realise that the plan was to get a coffee first. Realising that there was no way to cross part way up, especially with a stroller, we waited for the light. After a coffee and muffin, we did eventually get to the Luna Collective, but the feeling of the street as a barrier was strong (it likely didn’t help that while you sit in the very nice patio space along the street, that cars race past within inches of the side).
Why the city didn’t install mid-block crosswalks on all three blocks of Fort Street east of Blanshard when they put in the bike lanes is mystery to me. It is clear that building the bike lanes were not part of a complete street vision, which they should have been. If I were a store owner along here and could see how well walked and enjoyed the 700 block of Fort Street is, I would be demanding the city put one here as well.
Having the ability to easily cross back and forth between two sides of a shopping area means that your likelihood of making multiple stops increases incredibly. It also give opportunities for pedestrians to take differing routes as they walk through an area; knowing they won’t be confined to one side for entire long block. I can tell that many of you are saying that Chinatown doesn’t have a mid-block crosswalk so the principle doesn’t apply, but no it works. You don’t actually need a crosswalk if the street is easily crossed without one. Fisgard Street through Chinatown is a slow street and simple to cross back and forth across safely. Cars move at a lower speed through here due to the narrowness of the street and also the bi-directional traffic flow (something I wish we had all over downtown…) as well as the parked commercial trucks that are constantly offloading produce for the markets. One of the more enjoyable ways to spend some time downtown is to sit down on the side of Fisgard and just watch people cross back and forth between the stores.
So what do you think? Where else should we be adding some mid-block crosswalks, or is my theory off base somehow? I have also done up a little video to show off the idea visually, have a watch!