The Las Vegas Strip, now rivalling Disneyland and Times Square as one of the most intensely used entertainment zones on the continent, has some choices to make.
It can keep the traffic moving now that it has leveled off (down from 72,000 vehicles a day on the Strip before the 2008 Recession, to about 65,000 on the busiest stretch).
But the customers coming in the door, by an order of two to one, are more and more coming in by foot – and the Strip will need to find more room for them, while offering what they come to Las Vegas for. To do that, they need to celebrate and enhance the pedestrian experience. So far, not so good: wide roads, narrow sidewalks – and both are failing to move the traffic. But while the Strip is designed to enhance the cruising experience by car, on foot it drags.
Even with most of the overhead pedestrian bridges, there’s no playfulness or extravagence . Some have chain-link fencing and feel like cattle chutes.
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Revealingly, in a city that loves extravagant lighting, there are no displays on the passerelles – not even, in some cases, any pedestrian-scaled lighting at all.
How can a place with so much money do such a lousy job of the public realm?
The newest casino-resorts – the Bellagio, Venetian and Paris – have tried: wider sidewalks, no curb cuts, treescapes for shade, and something to gape at. Fountains, canals, towers – and streetscapes that integrate cafes, shopping and amazingly good fake architecture.
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But eventually they will have to stop fighting the obstructions that can actually enhance the pedestrian experience and get on with widening the sidewalks. Las Vegas will have to learn from New York – and not just how to serve those on foot but even those on bike. Yes, Las Vegas might even consider a separated bike lane now that the kind of visitors Las Vegas wants are cosmopolitan, and will have increasingly tried out cycling and bike-sharing systems in other places and will want it as option for their vacation experience.
Can you imagine the politics of that?
Any new option means at least narrowing the existing 12-foot traffic lanes or possibly taking space from motordom for other modes – practically unimaginable in a southwestern American county at this time.
But if Las Vegas wants to remain globally competititve, it will mean offering visitors the option of driving less, not even having to rent a car, because they will have some practical choices. Including, of course, transit. If enough people could be moved by transit, taxi and foot, the number of vehicles could continue to drop to the point where the loss of four lanes on a ten-lane arterial could actually improve the flow.
But what would this look like? Fortunately someone has already figured that out.
Part 7 here.
I find it very interesting that the pedestrian overpasses on the strip have more vertical circulation infrastructure than does the typical transit station platform in metro Vancouver. This typically includes wide stairs and both up and down escalators at BOTH ends of the crossing. A SkyTrain platform typically has only one escalator at the station house (ticketing) end and only an emergency stair at the other. There is also usually an elevator as well, but it is not that well used except for people with wheels.