Memph
Active Member
East Bayfront will have some? From the image gallery they look wider than the ones I posted from Prague, which are more like Old York Lane than Yorkville Avenue. The streets in East Bayfront, at least the ones with retail look like they would have cars, and be about the width of Yorkville Avenue.Well Yorkville has it to a certain degree ... and Easy Bayfront as well.
One of the big draws narrow pedestrian retail streets have for me is that they truly are two sided streets. You can walk in the middle of the street, turn your head to the right and do some window gazing, and then if something catches your eye on the left side of the street, you can check it out without having to worry about whether a car is coming. And because the street is narrow, there is a good chance that something on either side of the street will catch your eye, because both sides are close. You can basically interact with both sides while in the middle of the street, without having to cross it.
I would also be in favour of a fluid interface between public and private realm on these kinds of streets. Tokyo does this well. http://goo.gl/maps/O3Lwq
Even if you don't have open storefronts, being able to put signs on the sidewalk, maybe some flowers in front of your shop, or a fruit stand for a little grocer or fruit market, cafe tables, etc. Basically all sorts of stuff that interacts with pedestrians passing by to get them to pause and look around.