Bourbon Street Could Be a Model for Pedestrian Spaces

Pedestrian malls, while rarer than in European cities, aren’t new to the United States. Times Square, Santa Monica’s Third Street Promenade, and Fremont Street in Las Vegas are just a few examples of pedestrianized zones in U.S. cities (some more quasi-public than others). 

In fact, according to a Streetsblog USA article by Kea Wilson, “city leaders blocked cars from entering more than 200 downtown pedestrian malls across America throughout the 1960s and '70s, hoping to replicate the success of the shopping-oriented pedestrian plazas that are a fixture across much of Europe.” But the isolated locations of many of these plazas and the lack of cultural connection with the concept led to the failure of many to thrive.

The New Year’s attack on Bourbon Street, perpetrated in part with a large truck and aided by a lack of robust safety infrastructure, sparked a new call to pedestrianize Bourbon Street in New Orleans and make it safe for people walking all the time rather than on select occasions, with advocates saying that “pedestrianizing Bourbon Street would simply strengthen the temporary barriers that are already supposed to go up during periods of peak foot traffic but often don't, immediately making the tourist Mecca safer from all manner of vehicular threats.” 

Closing a space permanently to cars can make it easier and more affordable to build secure infrastructure and limit ingress while still planning for emergency vehicles. If an already popular pedestrian destination like Bourbon Street would commit to it, other U.S. cities might follow suit.