So, What's Wrong with Lemmon Avenue?

Removing San Francisco's Central Freeway

To the average observer, it would seem to be very hard to divert the auto traffic enough to make Lemmon Avenue a pleasant thoroughfare for pedestrians. To the average drive, any attempt to do so would impede the flow of traffic and make it take longer to cut across town. Yet both have been convinced in other situations that it can be done.

During the years I spent in San Francisco I saw two major pedestrian improvements, neither which seems to have done much to impede traffic flow and made a world of difference for pedestrians and neighborhoods.

The first was the replacement of the double tiered Embarcaderro Freeway with The Embarcaderro, a lively bicycle, walking and pedestrian street that extends from the Ferry Building at Market Street to Fisherman's Wharf. Soon after the Market Street Railway tracks were extended from the Ferry Building, along the Embarcaderro to Fisherman's Wharf. That's right, two layers of freeway were successfully replaced with a boulevard without resulting auto traffic jams.

The second was the replacement of the Central Freeway with Octavia Boulevard, which now includes lanes for bikes and pedestrians, and yes, cars.

Before Octavia Boulevard, the Central Freeway emptied directly onto a San Francisco neighborhood busy with pedestrians.

Car-Free on New York's Park Avenue

Of the two, Lemmon Avenue is probably closer to the example of Octavia Boulevard, although may be ahead of the game because there is no freeway on ramp leading directly onto it. According to the San Francisco County Transportation Authority, the Octavia Boulevard project has delivered a transportation facility that provides neighborhood access to a regional freeway while providing an attractive public space.

The biggest difference may be a large amount of retail along Lemmon Avenue. That however brings more pedestrians, which makes the improvements all the more critical. Part of those improvements will be to begin to rebuild the retail into sidewalk-oriented storefronts with parking more condensed or in the rear of buildings to limit auto traffic turning on and off of Lemmon Avenue.

The short of what's wrong with Lemmon Avenue is that it's unfriendly, unattractive and worse, dangerous. As it exists, it's the result of years of misguided traffic planning that focused on the movement of cars, in some cases completely disregarding the existence of pedestrians. It's the result of suburban traffic planners who thought not of living in Dallas neighborhoods, but of making it easy to drive through them. It's also obvious not one ounce of thought was given to building a thoroughfare that added to the attractiveness of its location.

Today more than at anytime in recent memory, Dallas is a place where demand for housing is increasing. There will still be a need for others to pass through, but not at the expense of safety or aesthetics to the residents. Today we understand that a great city must have arteries that take into consideration a variety of transportation forms including bicycles, foot traffic, buses and automobiles. The businesses along those routes must also consider multiple routes of pedestrian entity.

Experience shows, it won't stop traffic. New York City is a prime example. Multiple acres of roadway have recently been completely closed off to traffic, including areas of Times Square without much impact on traffic flow. It's made New York a better place to live.

Let's try it. Close Lemmon Avenue for a car-free day and see what happens. It may just turn out to be no big deal. Cars will find alternative routes and patterns will change without much prodding (Hey, it worked on Park Avenue). In the long-run, closing it off to traffic won't be necessary. Auto traffic is part of the urban mix, but so are parking bump outs, safety barriers, bike lanes and wider sidewalks.

Rethinking and Rebuilding Lemmon Avenue will help do the same for Dallas.