Given the dilemma that the Las Vegas Strip faces, having maxed out on both road and sidewalk space, with satisfactory results for neither – what should it do? One way or another, more sidewalk space must be found, which means taking space from the road, which means that there has to be an alternative for drivers, which means some frequent and practical transit, which means taking more lane space from the drivers.
It can be done.
Back in 2002, a graduate student at UCal Berkeley, Darrin Nordahl, submitted a thesis for his Masters of Urban Design, later published as The Architecture of Mobility: Enhancing the Urban Experience Along the Las Strip.
Darrin has gone on to other good things (Making Transit Fun, Public Produce and other books here), and forunately, Google has made his thesis available online. Very briefly, here’s his idea:
* Narrow the travel lanes. At the moment, they’re 12 feet wide. Reduce them to 11. (They could even get away with 9.)
* Planted medians range from 8 to 65 feet wide. Lots of room there for redesign.
* Left-hand turning lanes can be as long as 400 feet, suitable for up to 60 cars. Most often they only need room for about a dozen.
So even without reducing road capacity, there’s room to accommodate more space for pedestrians. But where?
As Nordahl, notes, the Strip is as long as San Francisco’s Market Street, as wide as the Champs-Elysees, with as much median space as Las Ramblas in Barcelona. And it is the latter that gave him his inspiration: Create a wide and uninterrupted pedestrian realm down the centre of the Strip, no more than three lanes from either side.
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No need to remove the curb cuts on the existing sidewalks. Pedestrians get better views of casinos on both sides of the Strip. There’s the opportunity to provide distinctive paving and lighting, more appropriate shade trees, and the possibility of transit easily accessed from both side of the median.
He even comes up with a rather outlandish (hence appropropiate) idea for a tourist conveyor: the San Francisco cablecar bred with the desert tortoise:
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Likewise he proposes over-the-top structures at the intersections to either allow scramble crossings at grade or separation of the peds and cars: A Rialto Bridge near the Venetian or a Brooklyn Bridge at the New, New York intersection, an Arc de Triomphe on a traffic circle near the Paris, “the once proud pink champagne-bubble sign” to recognize Bugsy Siegel at the Flamingo.
Likewise he proposes over-the-top structures at the intersections to either allow scramble crossings at grade or separation of the peds and cars: A Rialto Bridge near the Venetian or a Brooklyn Bridge at the New, New York intersection, an Arc de Triomphe on a traffic circle near the Paris, “the once proud pink champagne-bubble sign” to recognize Bugsy Siegel at the Flamingo.
Nordahl’s scheme may not address all the transport problems facing Las Vegas, but it’s exciting and very much in the spirit of the place – if the place has the spirit and the courage to rethink its public realm from top to bottom, from one side to the other.
If it continues to grow as the City of Entertainment and a major conference centre on the planet, it may not have much choice. The status quo won’t stay static. And why not serve the public where the public increasingly is: on foot, coming through the front door.
You’ll know the world has changed, and that Motordom has met a symbolic end, when one day, in the glorious spirit of Las Vegas, they implode one of the unneeded overhead ped walks.
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This series started here.
