Last year, I wrote about how Salt Lake City wants to build a new linear park around its downtown. That post can be found, here.
Fast forward to today, and the city's Department of Economic Development has just published a new comprehensive 215-page study that supports turning Main Street into a pedestrian promenade.
Specifically, the area running from South Temple to 400 South, and including 100 South from Main to West Temple:
As part of the study, they highlight a number of successful case studies from around the world, including 16th Street Mall in Denver, Bourke Street Mall in Melbourne, and Queens Quay here in Toronto.
In the case of Denver, they cite the one-mile stretch as single-handedly generating over 40% of the city's total downtown tax revenue! And in the case of Toronto, they refer to Queens Quay as a global destination. (Toronto readers, do you agree?)
Like most city building initiatives, this vision is will take years to realize. But it's interesting to note that, of the eight design alternatives included in the study, there is already one clear preference within the local community -- option B.
Option B is a pedestrian/transit mall, but with multi-use trails. In other words, it is a no-cars-allowed alternative that would still allow bicycles and scooters. Here's the street section:
If you'd like to download a copy of the full Main Street Pedestrian Promenade Study, click here.
It is well known that Salt Lake City has some of the biggest blocks and widest streets in the United States. This is typically a challenge if you're trying to create a walkable urban environment; however, it can also be an opportunity, because it means you have a lot of public space that you can do other things with.
It is for these reasons that SLC is working on something called the Green Loop:
And the idea is to turn a ring of downtown streets into a new linear park that looks something like this:
More specifically, the Green Loop wants to do the following five things (copied verbatim):
Develop a robust downtown urban forest
Serve as an active transportation corridor for walking and biking
Improve water quality through stormwater management
Create inviting social spaces that provide a variety of amenities and attractions
Create public front yards and gardens within the downtown that support the needs of all users
In my mind, albeit as a non-Salt Laker, this has the potential to be truly transformational for the city and as impactful as the High Line was for New York. So if you are a local, I would encourage you to complete this short project survey. It's open until Nov 30.