The goal isn't to create pedestrian and cyclist space from building footprints, it's to repurpose the existing roads and streets away from cars, to pedestrian and cyclist use.
Here are a few links to examples of successful conversions. Please note that no buildings were torn down to make any of this happen.
https://globaldesigningcities.org/publication/global-street-...
https://www.cnu.org/publicsquare/2022/06/21/seven-stroads-ha...
I live in a suburb of Dallas, Texas. Most people would say it's "fully built out" despite the oodles of new construction happening just slightly farther away from the city center. Still, light rail is being built right through Plano and Richardson and Addison, all existing built-out suburbs. The "Silver Line" will be done in a few years without tearing down tens of thousands of existing homes and businesses.
https://dart.org/about/project-and-initiatives/expansion/sil...
First of all, I don't get why it would be necessary to convert those streets on the first link you provided. On the first photograph, the sidewalks look empty. There are no impediments to walking down that street, although really, it is a dishonest comparison - one that is probably the worst black and white photo to make the first one seem as bleak as possible, and the second in color with people there dressed in summer clothes. But be that as it may, it's only aesthetic purposes only. It's not like some life-changing functionality.
Also, as I look at it on Google maps in that example that you gave of Strøget in Copenhagen Denmark, it's only one street. The rest of Copenhagen is chock-a-block full of regular city streets, same as any other major city. Color me unimpressed.
In Santa Monica, there's a pedestrian shopping street where no cars are allowed. It's on 3rd Street. All kinds of stupid shit like palm readers and people preaching Jesus, although it is "upscale." So what? Lot's tourists walk up and down, but I've never been a guy who is into tourist traps that attract suckers to places with a lot of shops and sidewalk cafes that people pay high prices for mediocre food. But that's just me. It's all overhyped. Like Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco.
That whole street in Capenhagen that you linked to is hilariously funny, now that I look at it. I'm on Google street maps, and it is completely lined with shops like Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci and other super high-end shops. I guess it is a great place for ultra-high end people to go to to spend $10,000 on a purse. I'm sure it keep the riff-raff out. The poor don't deserve a pedestrian place, I guess.
Just so not impressed.
And then, to walk down this Stroget in Copenhagen, you still have to drive there, and then park somewhere, probably far away, and walk down city streets a long way to get there.
And for me, for my money, if one wants to visit a nice place, instead of me going to this high-priced tourist trap, that quite honestly I'll go to some place I have to walk down a sidewalk next to a busy street to a store that is honest, run by honest people, rather than a Gucci store in some high-end place like 3rd street in Santa Monica. And furthermore, if I want a nice place to walk and get away from everyone, I'll just drive for 5 more minutes and go to Topanga State Park, a massive park, with almost unlimited walking trails. Why would I give a shit about some walking street tourist trap? A place to walk around and buy shit, or should I say shit, and contribute more to the global warming by buying shit. Gucci handbags for $10,000. So yeah, having a pedestian place to walk is so great. For the well-heeled crowd.
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As far as light rail, that has to be the most stupidist of the stupid. Yes, it works in dense population areas like San Francisco and New York, for sure, but those places are rare in the USA. When I lived in Sacramento, California, and they put in a light rail. What a complete joke. I had to drive over some light rail tracks at least twice a day, during all hours. I never saw more than 3 people per car. Ever. Even in the morning commute hours. Because Sacramento is so spread out. It's ridiculous. They spent $500 million on it. Plus the ongoing maintenance of the rail cars, rails, the administrators, the railcar drivers and their benefits and pensions, and on and on for ongoing expenses.
If you use the light rail, it costs $2.50 per ticket, so $5 for the day to commute. If you have a 10 mile commute to, and 10 mile commute back, if your vehicle gets 20 miles to the gallon, it costs $4.50 to drive, and this is at current gasoline prices. A few years ago, it cost $3 instead of $5. Plus you have the added flexibility with a car to pick up your kids from school, go to a shop, or whatever. Why would transportation, that carries 60 people in a train car, maybe with 3 cars total of 120 people, or whatever it is, and the cost averaged out between all the riders, cost more than the cost of driving the same distance? It doesn't make any sense at all. Maybe if rides cost 25 cents or 50 cents, yeah, ok, maybe.
As far as I'm concerned, these light rail projects are more resume builders for the city council and mayor. They will spend $1 billion just to say that they did it under their watch. Bragging rights. "Look at me, look at me, look what I did, I spend $1 billion on a light rail project."
But most of the USA is not like Europe, so what works in Europe is not the same as the USA. So it's comparing apples to oranges.
Though the goalposts shifted from "cannot build bike lanes without destroying thousands of homes and businesses" to "there is no visible impediment for pedestrians," even that understates the extent to which designing for safety and comfort make a huge difference in usage. Walking along a high-speed road with no barrier is a radically different experience from walking along a low-speed road or a road without cars, or even a road with a barrier for pedestrians.
Just like widening a road draws more traffic, creating pedestrian-friendly and cyclist-friendly spaces draw more pedestrians and cyclists, so a lack of perceived demand given current infrastructure doesn't mean much.
I provided two links, just two arbitrarily-chosen out of many, and yet even then the comment to which I'm responding focuses on disagreement with only the first, which is apparently an unimpressive case study because the current shops are too expensive. The seven examples in the second link might have helped, but I'm perhaps not. There are many, many more resources about how to build pedestrian-friendly streets[0] specifically, and a lot of information available about how to build strong towns[1] generally, if one is actually interested.
About light rail, I described the system in suburbs of Dallas, Texas, pretty far from Europe, which it turns out are even less dense than Sacramento, California[2]. And yet my experience with the existing light rail lines is largely positive. While they aren't jammed full of people twice a day like trains I've experienced in other cities, I've definitely been on the train when there was standing room only more than once. It seems as if systems well-designed to match the areas might be more effective than systems that are possibly political pet projects. Where tracks and stations are located and how much tickets cost are all choices made by someone somewhere, and sometimes those decisions are better made than others.
Dallas is very, very far from an ideal place for mass transit, given cultural factors and topography and geography that is very spread out, and yet three different train systems (for Dallas, Denton, and Fort Worth) seem to be able to work together and provide popular options for a good number of people anyway. It can be done, and it might help to focus on success stories more than perceived failures.
All in all, I find city design fascinating, but obviously many people don't.
0. https://nclurbandesign.org/pedestrian-friendly-street-a-grea...
1. https://www.strongtowns.org/streets
2. https://www.opendatanetwork.com/entity/1600000US0664000-1600...
>Though the goalposts shifted from "cannot build bike lanes without destroying thousands of homes and businesses" to "there is no visible impediment for pedestrians,"
Not really, just having a wide ranging discussion.
>Just like widening a road draws more traffic, creating pedestrian-friendly and cyclist-friendly spaces draw more pedestrians and cyclists, so a lack of perceived demand given current infrastructure doesn't mean much.
Not necessarily. I've seen many bike paths and pedestrian streets that have little to no bike/pedestrian traffic. I was listening to a radio show once and they were talking about a light rail project on the east coast. It cost way more than originally planned - instead of $200 million it cost $1 billion. This is because design changes all the time. They started building it and then the bike brigade, along with other special interest groups, came along and wanted a bike path. Well, the guy they talked to said that for all that extra expense, nobody uses that bike path. Maybe the bike path cost $100 million, and so it comes out to $10 million per person who rides their bike on it. The whole segment was about why civil structure undertakings cost more than planned.
I think there is a massive misunderstanding of the whole "build it and they will come" thing. That's not how it works.
I do think all of these types of capital outlays for bike paths and pedestrian streets are for the Gucci crowd. Nobody is going to spend $50 million creating a pedestrian street in Compton or wherever the gangs are in Los Angeles, or in the Tenderloin of San Francisco or the south side of Chicago in the baddest part of town.
Maybe spending that $100 million or whatever it costs would be better spent on getting more police in the bad parts of town, or something that can benefit the poorest of us all, instead of the bike riders who are riding $15,000 bikes. But I guess the $15,000 bike crowd has more clout than a bunch of riff raff gang members or working poor or homeless.
And yes, it is a zero sum game.
I don't have anything against what you're saying, I just think money could be spent better elsewhere.
But, I guess it is good that people can shop at Gucci or Prada without worrying about stopping for stoplights - they can just walk where they want. And the people who can't afford the shops and buy $2,400 pair of shoes can sit at the coffee shops and buy a cup of coffee for $9.87 and pretend that they can, instead of going to their local greasy spoon diner and buying a cup of Folger's coffee for $1.25.
I'm not trying to be a dick, it's just what I think about it all.
It's all good.
