Also, David Owen recently commented that he feels that, outside of the fact that you have to drive to them, everything about malls is done pretty well as a pedestrian experience. I’d hold to my assertion that they have some pretty strong value assumptions at their core, but his comment did make me re-think some of the sentiments I expressed in both the post and my comment.

@ Jason & KQF – I actually like the question about what it is that we can learn from malls. Not because I’m any great fan of malls, but because they have, through the course of their evolution, made a conscious series of planning and architectural decisions to take aspects of the Main St experience (I mean Main Street in a general sense, not Vancouver’s specifically) and build them into their design. In some places – lots of suburbs actually – this has helped them to supplant more conventional forms of gathering space. Whether or not this is a good thing is another question all together, but perhaps there’s something that we can glean from their design intent and execution.

I’ve asked myself similar questions when I look at places like Intrawest’s Whistler village. Disneyesque and sanitized to be sure… but they (Intraswest) have done a very capable job of designing their village around gathering spaces and connections and other sorts of amenities. There’s stuff to be learned from this as well.

(Of course, both Whistler and malls riff off of design considerations that long predate them… and these earlier approaches also emerge in the approach of New Urbanism and other schools of thought…but that’s a whole other story.)

Funny you should mention the blackboard idea — I did see one installed at a streetcar stop in Toronto, and I think they do add a nice read-write element to the space. See this photo I took of it here.

Who gets to decide what is interesting?

Great question. One I don’t have an answer to, and it’s intriguing to consider what kinds of processes we might undergo to decide that, because there are as many right answers as there are visitors and residents. So I think the focus, where the sign is concerned, is whether we care more about answering that question without stepping on any toes, or making a kiosk that’s easier to navigate. (But given Jason’s comment below, I concede that it is helpful to someone, even in its current form.)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts,

Karen

Thanks so much for weighing in.

I think your comment really serves to highlight a point a made early on in my post, which is that I’m probably poorly neurocognitively equipped to understand what the experience of this street — or for that matter, almost any linear corridor in Vancouver that’s been there since 1989 — is like for someone who hasn’t grown up in them. I’m guessing you came here seeing me expressing incredulity to Roland that people are getting value out of this sign, particularly the directory, in its current state, so I have to ask — has the value of it for you increased particularly since it was updated from before, when it didn’t have the business listing?

Let me respond a bit to some of your suggestions:

– clean safe public washroom – I did a paper for a design class when I was in university investigating the logistics issues of more public washrooms, and we found that it was associated mostly having to do with funding for regular maintenance, and the fact that they are required by law primarily for food establishments and that there is really nothing in there about either having them be open or accessible 24/7 (after all, a lot of life happens outside business hours). Perhaps I’ll blow the (virtual) dust off that report. I’m purely guessing here, that washrooms in malls are maintained by mall management companies who are likely collecting something akin to strata fees to fund their maintenance.

Perhaps this is the missing funding model that could keep real, public washrooms open in some of these corridors, and something that the BIAs are uniquely positioned to make real. Instead of seeing handwritten “no public washroom” signs in store windows, we could see, “Washroom over there,” directing them to a jointly-maintained and supported public facility. This is a thought-provoking one though, and given the detail I had in our report, a great idea for a next post.

– designated spaces for gathering/loitering/eating / seating — I don’t see that as particularly lacking right now. If there were food carts on Main St., there would need to be some slightly larger spots needed. As far as I know, most food establishments on Main right now have (mostly indoor, and sometimes outdoor) seating. Are those not well designated enough?

Main St. has also got a pretty sweet selection of benches. I know because my partner sits at one to wait for me to arrive off the bus when we go for Singaporean once a week. Could you elaborate on the kind of designation that makes you feel more comfortable, at ease or informed? Or are you referring strictly to having their presence indicated on the signage? My sense is that the City’s already put the bar pretty high in this respect, and that they are well-spaced and well-distributed enough so that you’re never more than ~1.5 min walk away enough from the bench — though it could always be improved. Seniors, I bet, would be a great group of people to ask about this, because they probably need and are more aware of the sitting spot in ways I haven’t needed (yet).

– store fronts close to the sidewalk instead of behind parking lots — there I agree with you completely; as do many scholars of walkability.

– car-free — no argument from me there; though I will nuance it by saying that watching people embark and disembark from transit is a people-watching joy of the street commonly lacking in malls (see above re: venue for daily life). I also feel it would only be fair to concede a point I’ve read in David Owen’s “Green Metropolis”, which is that goods movement activity, currently represented primarily by trucking, actually does have an important contribution to walkability too, because it is the fact that trucks bring goods to places close to walking distance of people’s residents that enables compact development at all. For the noise and air pollution reasons I’m finding myself ever-more enthused about electric trucks and human-propelled goods movement services. Vancouver’s already considered fortunate in this regard with backlanes/laneways — another great topic! — compared to places without them where I’ve heard things can get a little dicey.

Finally, this one is hard to let get away:

Main St is full of tchotchke shops, all alike, and I can rarely remember the exact name of the store I’m looking for, let alone whether it’s north or south of my current location.

I just had a walk today with a friend who moved (back) in my neighbourhood, and we remarked about how given enough exposure, even residential buildings become identifiable as landmarks. I take a different route back to my house through the residential streets almost every time I make the walking trip, and because I take the bus, I walk those streets a lot. You could blindfold me, spin me around and drop me in the middle of the residential streets west of Main between Broadway and King Edward and I’d still be able to pinpoint exactly where I am, because I’ve walked and biked and slogged and skipped down them, on the roadway or on the sideway, in sun, rain, snow, hail, under umbrellas, soaked to the skin, earphones in and out. (Perhaps I should try marketing this as a stupid human trick.)

I’m not saying as a boast, but to help you understand where I’m coming from when I say that the characterization of them as being all alike is completely contrary to my actual experience — because if you told me what they sell and what’s around it, I could probably tell you the shop you’re looking for, and likely so could my neighbours.

I think getting it wrong is part of the fun of building the mental model of the street, because I still get it wrong sometimes too. Malls are not generally allowed to become the “venue for daily living” in quite the same way, and the exception to this statement is when they are allowed to be repurposed as walkthrough spaces; I think the underground cities back east in Montreal and Toronto take on that kind of character. (Eaton Centre kept me warm on many a nighttime walk home from Queen Street.)

Finally, a book I’m reading for a class talks about how we often create commodities out of things because it’s easier to deal with things than it is with people. Perhaps the kiosk’s true information value actually lies in getting people who are looking for something to visibly identify themselves somehow. By being somewhat ineffective at answering absolutely every question anyone could have, it could also been as giving people who know the place, like myself, the opportunity to be helpful and inclusive to newcomers by striking up the conversation of what it is they are looking for, paving the way for the magic of social interaction. Assuming, of course, that the newcomers want to and are open to interacting with locals. And even I am guilty of not living up to this when I travel at times. (See above re: Hunt’s Point.) Perhaps, in a nod to the tweet response I sent to Seth, this is really about de-mystifying or democratizing the knowledge accrued from storytelling and residency, and that’s the root source of my discomfort with the signs.

Jason, you may win the award for making me post the longest comment to this blog ever. Congratulations!

Karen

All your suggestions for improvements are good ones; maybe the BIA could work with the local community association to come up with some local colour.

This has got me thinking, what other mall features could we bring into the real world?

– clean, safe public washrooms
– designated spaces for gathering/loitering/eating
– seating for people who need a little rest
– store fronts close to the sidewalk instead of behind parking lots
– information kiosks
– car-free

It’s almost like what is needed is a white-board section where people can add their own comments/suggestions…. but would that end up as anything other than a graffiti-filled disaster?