I don't go downtown very often, so I don't have much of an emotional investment in what happens. I think that compared to the way the downtown malls were, anything would be an improvement. I don't think a sky bridge would be the death of main street. It just doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. The old malls forced everyone out onto main street to go from one to the other, and that didn't seem to help "keep main street alive".
Todays article in the Salt Lake Tribune about Rocky's Veto on the sky bridge mentioned Rocky's idea of closing main street to cars. Trax would still go through, obviously, but I think the idea bears some contemplation. The ZCMI center food court always had people in it, eating and talking (at least during my teen-age years when I was at the mall more often). Imagine if that type of atmosphere could be transferred outside. If main street was closed to traffic, and an inviting atmosphere was created to attract people, it wouldn't matter if there was a sky bridge or not, because people would want to be on main street.
I think the key here is attracting people to main street instead of trying to force them to pass through it (by doing away with the sky bridge idea) on their way to the other mall.
2 comments:
Maybe Rockey learned something from Pres. Hinckley about how special closing the area between the temple and the JSB has become.
If Rocky closes more of Main Street I want to be assured no one can pass out Sean Hannity or Bill O' Reilly literature especially the first Tuesday in November for any election year. Republicans would have to obey certain ethical standards to be on Rocky's street at a minimum.
Good work Rocky!
Closing the Main St block between South Temple and 1st So and making a city plaza to compliment the church plaza to the north would be nice, especially if they make sure there is sufficient parking nearby. UTA has not convinced me that my time is so valueless as to waste it on the bus. But I have lots of not so fond memories of shopping in ZCMI mall and needing to go to Crossroads mall during a snowstorm. I like the idea of a skybridge. The same kind of weather adversion keeps me away from the new gateway development when the temperature outside is below 50 or abave 80. But then I will use almost any excuse to avoid shopping.
Post a Comment