Mall Crossings: problems caused by 'design limbo'

The Pearl Street Mall is Boulder, Colorado.

In the debate about the mall vehicle crossings, I see a lot of people taking about the fact that other pedestrian malls across the country have vehicle crossings, like Peal Street in Boulder, Colorado or Burlington’s Church Street Marketplace, as if they were the same as ours….but its worth mentioning that these and other remaining pedestrian malls across the country are designed in a fundamentally different way that our DTM.

All of them were actually built on side/cross streets that traverse main thoroughfares. The Church Street Marketplace in Burlington, Vermont, for example, traverses five main thoroughfares, all with two-way traffic. The Pearl Street Mall is Boulder, Colorado traverses several streets, including Broadway, a four-lane road [picture in this post], and the Lincoln Road Mall in Miami traverses a major avenue. As pedestrians approach these intersections its clear the streets dominate the space. They are interruptions in the ped…