It seemed like a good idea at the time -- recreating the car-free pedestrian convenience of regional malls on city streets. But the theory proved wrong, both in the United States and in Canada. Now Canada's cities, like their U.S. counterparts, are reopening their streets to cars, having discovered that when they banished vehicles, store traffic dwindled, too.
City planners and retailers have recognized the value of open access to downtown streetfront shopping, following various experiments with pedestrian malls, limited-access thoroughfares for automobiles, and public transit streets.
Urban renewal efforts of the 1960s and 1970s modified the traditional drive-through main street in a number of Canada's city centers, creating pedestrian-only streets such as Ottawa's Sparks Street Mall. Modifications often included removing parking and widening sidewalks, or making certain streets accessible only to buses, taxis and other public transportation.
Now, as in the United States, those changes are being reversed in many cases.
Pedestrian malling originally took place because downtown centers felt themselves in competition with suburban shopping centers, said Paul Mazumdar, a development planner for the City of Calgary, Alberta. But shoppers wanting to park close to their shopping destinations hated pedestrian malls, he explained.
These new downtown environments often had other serious drawbacks. The creation of Calgary's 8th Avenue Mall in the early 1970s closed off that street, allowing shoppers to visit four blocks of stores, anchored by Eaton's and The Bay, without going outside. But the renovations resulted in a closed-off mall exterior that is not pedestrian-friendly. Most shoppers enter the mall from adjoining parking garages rather than from the sidewalks outside, Mr. Mazumdar explained.
The surrounding area became a hangout for less desirable elements, and retail declined. As a result, most retail operations on Seventh Avenue have been replaced by office towers.
Last year, Calgary took a step toward de-malling by opening Stephen Avenue Mall to traffic after 6 p.m. Other cities are following suit: Ottawa's Rideau Street gradually is regaining the retail presence lost with the 1983 construction of Rideau Street Mall. Its sidewalks were totally enclosed, and the street became a public transit route closed to automobiles, but filled with buses belching exhaust.
It was "a terrible mistake, a disaster," said John Toth, owner of Dworkin Furs Ltd., located at the eastern end of Rideau Street. "It made the street somber and forbidding, and attracted the type of tenancy that nobody wanted."
Four years ago, car traffic was restored, and business has improved, Mr. Toth said. Better retail tenants are coming in. These include Chapters, the Canadian book superstore chain, and local merchants, including cafes and apparel stores. Some prime retail sites for anchors are available on the street.
The lesson learned? "A shopping street needs to have two-way [automobile] traffic to give maximum visibility, and parking meters so people driving through feel that they could park and shop," said Mr. Toth. Adding even a few parking spaces can change people's perception of the street, "And perception is reality," he said.
Restoring parking has had a good impact on Kitchener, Ontario, where bus bays were converted into parking spaces three years ago. While the move added only 50 spaces, compared with a total of more than 7,000 private and public parking spaces in the downtown area as a whole, it made a big psychological difference, said Nancy Brawley, executive director of Kitchener's Downtown Business Association.
"When you take activity off the street, you take eyes off the street," Ms. Brawley observed. "Whenever you take away the traffic and bustling, you end up with an area where the wrong elements come in."
Kitchener's one-way ring road for the downtown core is also being made two-way.
Vancouver, British Columbia, is reconsidering its closure of three blocks of downtown Granville Street, where only buses, taxis and pedestrians may go at present. The street has taken on a retailing flavor that is definitely lower-end, said Steven Sewall and Peter Wreglesworth, principals with Architectura, a Vancouver architectural and design firm. They contrast that character with the vibrant retailing of nearby Robson Street, one of Canada's premier shopping areas.
With the high rents, this is not a place for bargain shopping, Mr. Wreglesworth said. "You get a lot of high-end tourist dollars, and people who are looking for a downtown urban experience."
Robson is very pedestrian-oriented, with street performers and lots of people strolling to take in the scene, he said. But it is also very automobile-friendly, with four lanes, two of which offer curb parking.
"You can drive by and decide to go and shop somewhere on impulse," Mr. Wreglesworth said. "During the day, it's possible to stop your car, run into a store and buy a shirt during lunch hour."
Robson Street intersects with Granville, and a revitalized Granville Street might be able to profit from this proximity, he said.
A study for the City of Vancouver proposes returning cars to Granville Street and transforming the area into a theater and entertainment district.
"I think that would draw people along Robson, and give it [Granville] a flavor that would supplement that pedestrian experience, and not compete with it," he said. Cinemas already exist there, he noted, and the Orpheum concert hall is accessible from Granville Street.
The "downtown east" area just east of Granville is seeing considerable redevelopment. Vancouver's strong, growing urban population is already denser than that of Manhattan in some areas, Mr. Wreglesworth said.
Summing up on the subject of Granville Street, Mr. Sewall said, "Planners thought that the car was an impediment to a vital, peopled street, but it's proven to be just the opposite."
One reason pedestrian malls depress retailing is that, unlike park-and-shop venues, they limit how much merchandise can be carried, said Richard Talbot of Thomas Consultants International, Toronto.
"First you kill off the food stores or supermarkets because people can't take their cars," he said. "That destroys the reason to go downtown weekly or more often. As a spin-off, there's no cross-shopping at bakeries, delis or specialty stores such as fishmongers."
Spending drops across the board without cars. Mr. Talbot cited surveys by his company of shoppers at Ottawa's Rideau Street which showed that transit passengers only spend 25% as much as car passengers. "You don't have to be a rocket scientist to realize when you take cars off streets, people stop shopping."
Some downtown pedestrian malls seem to be here to stay, however. Ottawa's Sparks Street, lying just to the south of the federal Parliament Buildings, was made into one of Canada's first pedestrian malls in the 1960s. It is unusual because the north side of the street is owned by the federal government, and some leading tenants are government operations rather than private retailers.
Halifax, Nova Scotia, appears content with its downtown Granville Mall, an open-air area flanked by heritage buildings housing stores, pubs, a small shopping mall and the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design.
Although it occupies a one-block cobblestoned stretch of Granville Street, the pedestrian mall never came at the expense of through-traffic, because the street never continued past that point, said Kate Carmichael, executive director of the Downtown Halifax Business Commission.
Government Street, in Victoria, British Columbia, demonstrates how maintaining even limited traffic can be effective. Pedestrians have been given more space on Government Street, where traffic has been made one-way and sidewalks enlarged.
There are suggestions from time to time that the street be made a fully pedestrian street, but retailers need access for deliveries, said Jim Munro, proprietor of Munro's Bookstore, which is located on Government Street. Both merchants and the public are content with the current arrangement, he said. "This one's a winner."