Thoughts on Centralia Downtown Parking from a “Greenie”
Thoughts on Centralia Downtown Parking from a “Greenie”
As we get to know more folks in the Hub City Historic Downtown, we learn new things all the time. Of course as hoteliers and owners of a major rehabilitation project in the heart of the downtown area – we are interested in listening to what folks have to say… If we were to tally up the sub total of the majority of our conversations with downtown folks – 99.9% of the conversations have included one ‘grip or concern’ - - - the “P word” ~ parking… or lack there of.
Parking is of course a concern for us as well, as we will soon be operating 50+ hotel rooms with guests who most likely traveled to our location by car and will also need a place to park. We have been exploring all sorts of information about parking and how similar cities have solved their parking issues. Our research has also included looking into the parking arrangements of “new urbanist” communities. As I posted this past week, we liken the concept of ‘new urbanism’ as ‘historic urbanism,’ because new urbanism is based on the model of a historic downtown structure. Additionally, we have been interested in what new ‘green’ sustainable communities are doing about the parking issue and how they are addressing transportation needs.
There is a currently a world wide urban city planning movement that is working to eliminate the need for cars in the downtowns of these progressive cities. These sustainable communities are actually ELIMINATING parking - - imagine that! One approach in the ‘green’ community is to address the downtown holistically – in other words, create a downtown where a car at arms reach is not necessary to live, work and play downtown. This concept is the “pedestrian friendly city center” where transportation is all about walking, biking or electric cart.
We invite you to have an open mind and read on…
Following is a great overview of Copenhagen’s method for dealing with their massive parking crisis and how they went about transforming their city into a Pedestrian City. Pedestrian Cities are growing in popularity in many top regions around the world. The incredible beauty, enjoyment, and convenience a network of connected pedestrian streets and squares provides to the residents on a daily basis is unsurpassed. Being able to walk to a mix of shops, restaurants, newsstands, coffeehouses and open-air markets within car-free neighborhoods and work centers delivers the highest quality of life, and adds great variety and vitality to an area.
Copenhagen is another of the world’s great pedestrian cities. A recent issue of ‘Metropolis’ magazine talks about Copenhagen and its growing pedestrian street network. Although it’s blessed with certain inherited characteristics - such as a narrow medieval street grid - the city has worked steadily to improve the quality of its street life. In the 40 years since Copenhagen’s main street was turned into a pedestrian thoroughfare, city planners have taken numerous small steps to transform the city from a car-oriented place to a people-friendly one. “In Copenhagen, we have pioneered a method of systematically studying and recording people in the city,” says Jan Gehl, a Danish architect and co-author of ‘Public Spaces-Public Life’, a study on what makes the city’s urban spaces work. “After twenty years of research, we’ve been able to prove that these steps have created four times more public life.” Here is Copenhagen’s program for a more pedestrian-friendly city:
COPENHAGEN’S 10-STEP PROGRAM
1. CONVERT STREETS INTO PEDESTRIAN THOROUGHFARESThe city turned its traditional main street, Stroget, into a pedestrian thoroughfare in 1962. In succeeding decades they gradually added more pedestrian-only streets, linking them to pedestrian-priority streets, where walkers and cyclists have right-of-way but cars are allowed at low speeds.
2. REDUCE TRAFFIC AND PARKING GRADUALLY To keep traffic volume stable, the city reduced the number of cars in the city center by eliminating parking spaces at a rate of 2-3 percent per year. Between 1986 and 1996 the city eliminated about 600 spaces.
3. TURN PARKING LOTS INTO PUBLIC SQUARES
The act of creating pedestrian streets freed up parking lots, enabling the city to transform them into public squares.
4. KEEP SCALE DENSE AND LOW
Low-rise, densely spaced buildings allow breezes to pass over them, making the city center milder and less windy than the rest of Copenhagen.
5. HONOR THE HUMAN SCALE
The city’s modest scale and street grid make walking a pleasant experience; its historic buildings, with their stoops, awnings, and doorways, provide people with impromptu places to stand and sit.
6. POPULATE THE CORE
More than 6,800 residents now live in the city center. They’ve eliminated their dependence on cars, and at night their lighted windows give visiting pedestrians a feeling of safety.
7. ENCOURAGE STUDENT LIVING
Students who commute to school on bicycles don’t add to traffic congestion; on the contrary, their active presence, day and night, animates the city.
8. ADAPT THE CITYSCAPE TO CHANGING SEASONS
Outdoor cafes, public squares, and street performers attract thousands in the summer; skating rinks, heated benches, and gaslit heaters on street corners make winters in the city center enjoyable.
9. PROMOTE CYCLING AS A MAJOR MODE OF TRANSPORTATION
The city established new bike lanes and extended existing ones. They placed bike crossings – using space freed up by the elimination of parking – near intersections. Currently 34 percent of Copenhageners who work in the city bicycle to their jobs.10. MAKE BICYCLES AVAILABLEThe city introduced the City Bike system in 1995, which allows anyone to borrow a bike from stands around the city for a small coin deposit. When finished, they simply leave them at any one of the 110 bike stands located around the city center and their money is refunded.
