“New Urbanism” and Traffic in Williamsburg
“New Urbanism” is a model for building new developments and revitalizing old areas that strives to allow people to work, shop and live within walking distance. Downtown Williamsburg already is pedestrian-oriented to a great extent. However, most people get downtown by driving there. How does this effect what we can expect downtown?
Dr. Douglas W. Rae, author of City, Urbanism and Its End answered the following question recently in an interview.
Q: How do we make the concepts of new urbanism viable in our cities today?
A: A city must have the following: 1. Effective public transportation, and 2. pedestrian friendly nodes around this public transportation.
Cities used to be pedestrian friendly from necessity; people had no other way to get around but to walk. Urban areas had to be built close together to allow people to walk between all the places they went during their day-to-day routines. That meant that homes, businesses, schools, etc. were all right there. People saw one another and interacted as they went from place to place.
The advent of the automobile gave people tremendous freedom - but at the cost of face-to-face interaction at the sidewalk level. The problem we face today in getting new urbanist concept to really make a difference is that people will not get out of their cars.
An editorial in the July 11, 2004 Daily Press points out that “part of what the new urbanism aims to restore is the kind of communities that urban renewal sometimes destroyed. With its emphasis on designs that encourage people to park their cars and set out on foot, to patronize local establishments, to live in ways that bring them into contact with their neighbors....”
The editorial goes on to say, “The real problem is that most new urbanism developments lack the residential might or commercial depth to attain their promise of getting people out of their cars. Rarely are there enough residents to support the mix of stores and amenities that will suffice to meet their needs.
It is not possible to re-create the locus of attractions or the transit systems or the way of life that make New York and the archetypal “Our Town” alive with pedestrians. You can build a reproduction Main Street, but people will still drive to the mall.”
I’ve heard people say that they want to see the downtown area alive with shops and restaurants open day and night. I don’t believe this will happen unless we dramatically increase the number of people living downtown. There are simply not enough people to patronize those shops day and night. People come during business hours and then get in their cars and go.
Someday something may happen that forces us to give up our automobile-oriented way of life. Until then traffic will be a reality in the City of Williamsburg. Most of us do not see the benefits of improved public transportation facilities, but we see an immediate benefit from widened and improved roads.
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Wednesday, July 21, 2004 | Posted by Joe Hertzler
(2) Comments | Filed under City of Williamsburg
Port Warrick and New Town, both of which are considered new urbanist type developments, realize they will have to have people from outside their communities patronize the businesses inorder for the businesses to survive. The communities are not “stand-alone” as one might think a new urbanist community ought to be. They know that the residential component within the community will not be sufficient to support the business component. The development then becomes a destination to which people will travel, bringing their cars with them.
Posted by | Saturday, July 31, 2:07 am