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Tuesday, May 21, 2013
No longer a ‘pedestrian mall,’ K Street prepares for cars
by Melissa Corker, published on July 11, 2011 at 7:39 PM
Storyline: Politics
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On Tuesday evening, the City Council will consider revising a local ordinance that will bring the city one step closer to seeing cars on K Street for the first time in more than 45 years.
The revised ordinance will change a city code that has been in place since the early 1960s that defined the five blocks of K Street between Eighth to 12th streets as a “pedestrian mall,” closing it to vehicular traffic.
“It was something that was happening in a lot of places back then,” said Denise Malvetti, department manager at the city’s Economic Development Department. “Cities were trying to replicate the suburban experience, and they created a lot of these pedestrian malls. It was a failed experiment, though.”
Roughly 150 cities in the U.S. installed pedestrian malls in the 1960s, Malvetti said, and now about half of those have converted back to allow street traffic.
“We’ve been working on getting cars back on K Street since late 2008,” Malvetti said. “We’ve put a lot of consideration into this project, and we did a lot of outreach to the community.”
Business owners were outspoken in saying that returning cars to K Street is vital to increasing retail activity in the area, Malvetti said, but they won’t see an instant change.
“It will likely be an incremental increase over time,” Malvetti said.
City Council recently approved numerous projects intended to revitalize the J-K-L corridor, and K Street in particular, in order to stimulate economic activity in the area and bring people back to what was once a hub of activity in the city, Malvetti said.
The “Cars on K Street” project was part of a $2.7 million construction and design project approved by City Council in April 2010.
The purpose of the project, according to a staff report, is to “increase access and visibility to businesses, promote a safe environment, stimulate additional economic activity, and improve (traffic) circulation.”
“Sacramento needs to be more pedestrian-friendly,” said Councilman Steve Cohn, “but the way that part of K Street is laid out, it wasn’t working as a pedestrian-only street.”
Cohn said returning cars to K Street makes sense because it will help with traffic flow and make it easier for people to get to the businesses along that part of K Street.
In order to allow for the reintroduction of cars on K Street from Eighth to 12th streets, the city code must be amended to remove the definition of “pedestrian mall” currently applied to those five street blocks.
According to provisions in the city charter, the council must first pass the revised ordinance for publication, and then it can finalize the approval at the following City Council meeting.
This is one of the last steps before construction can begin, Malvetti said. The Department of Transportation will bring a construction contract to City Council next week for approval, and then groundbreaking can begin within the first week of August.
Design plans for the “Cars on K Street” project include creating new crossing signals at 11th and K streets, wheelchair access at intersections and the addition of edge treatments (possibly planters or street furniture) to provide a buffer between the roadway and sidewalks to increase pedestrian safety and make the blocks more visually appealing.
“Our goal is to have cars back on K Street in early November,” Malvetti said. “It’s one more step in the revitalization of K Street.”
Melissa Corker is a Staff Reporter for The Sacramento Press. Follow her on Twitter @MelissaCorker.
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The rise of suburbs, highways and suburban shopping malls, and the demolition of the densely populated West End neighborhood, are what really killed K Street. Suburban shoppers preferred suburban malls even when you could still drive on K Street. The pedestrian mall was a desperation move to prop up an already failing retail district.
This is pretty much completely unrelated to the story, but I walked past the 700 block of K Street yesterday at 4:00 pm, where D&S is planning their development, and every doorway smelled like urine. Can't the city make them power wash their sidewalks a few times a month while the planning is underway? I think that alone will help “promote a safe environment and stimulate additional economic activity.” This should just be assumed and built into the carrying costs of owning the development, much like graffiti removal. I'd rather look at graffiti than smell urine, personally.
The city spends millions streetscaping and paving the block, and then lets everybody pee on it. Mind you, this is across the street from the installed community waterpark/fountain that can't be turned on because having no bathroom nearby is a health hazard. ...what about the urine covered doorways? geez... While I'm on the subject, some of the actual doors facing K street have begun to rot in the lower corners because of the urine.
Downtown Sacramento Partnership does have a "Fight the Funk" team that power-washes buildings, but they can't wash everything at once. Fact is, we have a lot of homeless on the street and there are no public restrooms open at night in the central city. People can't just not pee, they have to pee somewhere, so they do it on the street. Other cities have public bathroom facilities, for everyone's use--maybe we should too?
Find it here also:
http://sacramentopress.com/headline/25842/City_staff_Cars_on_K_good_for_business
Are we just too reliant on getting in a car and driving? Can we not come up with anything that will draw people to K Street and make it successful without cars?
It's a little late for that now, of course.
Almost no one lives on K Street between 7th and 12th Street (or even that near it). It's been a ghost town after 6 PM as long as I can remember. It's a street I avoid (especially at night) if I have to walk somewhere near it. And since bikes weren't allowed until recently, I couldn't even use it as a nice traffic-free shortcut. The most successful businesses opening up recently, like the Dive Bar complex, do bring in people, but mostly people that live outside of downtown and drive. They park in a lot just off K street, walk straight to their destination, and walk straight back when finished. They're not strolling down K street walking past empty pissed-covered buildings.
I walk and bike everywhere and support making our city more bike/ped friendly in every possible way, but traffic on K Street is welcome and long overdue. US cities achieve density through automobile traffic mostly, since they are more spread out. This will allow enough businesses to survive (organically, not through failed and expensive city programs to keep them alive) that it will make locals want to go there again.
WIth the combination of automobile traffic and local foot and bike traffic, K street can achieve the density it needs to survive.
In the modern United States, "mall" means "shopping mall": a place people drive to, shop at stores, and then drive home. The people who visit the mall don't live there, or generally even within walking distance. While malls have often become a sort of privatized and sanitized agora, they really aren't useful in the same manner, and the mode of transportation makes their function, meaning and purpose very different from the European interpretation. Figuring out why K Street's pedestrian mall didn't work requires looking at the reasons why European malls do work--and why K Street worked the way it did during its heyday.
It would be an eye opening experience for the entire City Council, including Mayor Johnson to have a contest among themselves to see who can submit the best grant proposal in order to generate funds to rehabilitate those neighborhoods that desperately need it. The grand prize will be a big “THANK YOU” from their constituents. As it currently stands, there are no winners.
In 10 to 20 years depending on the economy's recovery they may be. For years downtown businesses didn't want residents there because they mistakenly thought their customers would drive from the burbs to the mall and do ???? The problem is that none of the planners ever lived or ever plan to live on K if and when those upper floor residences get built.
Residences, MARKET rate housing is the only solution...and until this city council tells ACORN and other special interests to take a back seat it will never happen.
It is amazing (and pathetic) to realize in the forty years CADA has been managing development in the downtown core it has built fewer housing units than Portland or San Diego have done each and every year!!
Oh, and CADA does not manage development on K Street or anywhere north of the Capitol, and was formed in 1978.
No cars on a small stretch of K Street is a good thing, however the city loves it for parking ticket income. That is for the few cars that will be able to park.....not enough room with light rail & big sidewalks.
Let's get the housing & a grocer in there first. Let's get the empty storefronts opposite K Street on J Street filled (11th-12th both sides). There are cars driving down that busy section all day everyday with no tenants. Housing, grocer, housing, grocer!
And the housing is now ready to get underway on the 700 block--the D&S/CFY project was approved by Council a couple weeks ago. The 800 block project has been stalled by the changes to California redevelopment law--we'll see what happens. There is a small market planned for that project. As to a larger market, I'd suggest bugging Benvenuti--now that Greyhound has opened on Richards Boulevard, there's a great spot available that is just about the right size for a medium-sized neighborhood market right on the corner of 7th and L! And it already has a building with a large drive-up area and an exterior of Gladding-McBean terra cotta tile (under a couple coats of cheap paint.)