© 2024 | WUWF Public Media
11000 University Parkway
Pensacola, FL 32514
850 474-2787
NPR for Florida's Great Northwest
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Carl Wernicke: Open Streets Are Vibrant

IHMC

If local officials need any more indication of just how much people crave a pedestrian-friendly downtown, the recent Ciclovia provided it.
Ciclovia shut down five miles of downtown to automobiles, opening the streets to bike riders and pedestrians. I rode my bike down from East Hill to check it out.
I found thousands of people frolicking on asphalt usually devoted to automobiles. There’s something about a downtown street that has been closed to cars and opened to people that draws a crowd.
I cruised the main area on Palafox Street from Garden to Palafox Pier, and from the Gulf Power building to Maritime Park, where a cycling skills event was held. There were numerous activities for kids, with streets and sidewalks jammed with people. Restaurants  and coffee shops with sidewalk tables were doing a bang-up business.
And I admit I didn’t realize how many people ride. I mean kids, young adults and old people … including many older than me, definitely a comforting sight.
And the diversity of bikes was amazing. I saw many recumbent bicycles, which older riders favor. There were beach cruisers, 10-speeds, tandem cycles, kids’ bikes with trainer wheels and even something I had never seen before, a stand-up bike powered by a treadmill. The rider walked briskly on the treadmill to provide power to the wheels, and the thing looked fast. There were also bikes with trailers and baskets, carrying both kids and dogs.
There were also people on skateboards, roller blades and other devices.
We already knew, through the crowds that flock downtown for Gallery Night, that people love cruising downtown streets when cars are pushed out. And for all the success of Gallery Night, it has stirred controversy, in no small part because of alcohol consumption and a feeling by many people that the late-night party aspect was getting out of hand.
But Ciclovia proved that the attraction of car-free downtown streets is not about alcohol or late-night partying. This was a day-time party, and it was definitely kid- and family-friendly.
It should be clear by now that a primary part of the resurrection of downtown Pensacola is how friendly it has become to people on foot and, increasingly, bicycles. I’ve mentioned before that I think one of the best things city planners did was installing four-way stops at many central intersections. This step instantly made the streets safer, and thus more welcoming to people on foot and bicycle.
Modern community planning has focused on the value of limiting the impact of automobiles. Planners today stress that perhaps the single biggest thing you can do to restore the economic health of an area is to slow down the speed of passing cars and empower pedestrians and bikers. There is a growing list of success stories around the country where planners have resuscitated economically barren streetscapes by restoring the primacy of people over cars.
There is still resistance to this, including locally. Many planners still cling to the idea that the main purpose of streets is to move cars through an area as quickly as possible. But clinging to that concept puts moving traffic ahead of the interests of people and even the health of local businesses.
 People will flock to fill the vacuum left when you push cars off the streets. Anyone who went downtown during Ciclovia could see that plainly enough.

Carl Wernicke is a native of Pensacola. He graduated from the University of Florida in 1975 with a degree in journalism. After 33 years as a reporter and editor, he retired from the Pensacola News Journal in April 2012; he spent the last 15 years at the PNJ as editor of the editorial page. He joined the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition in 2012 as Senior Writer and Communications Manager, and retired from IHMC in 2015.His hobbies include reading, traveling, gardening, hiking, enjoying nature around his home in Downtown Pensacola, as well as watching baseball and college football, especially the Florida Gators and New York Yankees. His wife, Patti, retired as a senior vice president at Gulf Winds Federal Credit Union and is a Master Gardener. Carl is a regular contributor to WUWF. His commentaries focus on life in and around the Pensacola area and range in subject matter from birding to downtown redevelopment and from preserving our natural heritage to life in local neighborhoods.