Shut Em Down in Carytown

With apologies to Public Enemy, a few things have crossed my desk recently that reinforce for me the notion that mayoral candidate Paul Goldman was into something earlier this summer when he proposed the closure of Cary Street between Thompson Street and the Boulevard. You may remember the commenting furor that ensued after I jumped on Goldman's bandwagon in these virtual pages. (Funny, I agree with Goldman and people go nuts. I disagree with Goldman and people go nuts.)

Let's travel to New York City for a moment, where a global idea is in the process of shutting down the grand Park Avenue boulevard from the Brooklyn Bridge to Central Park for three consecutive Saturdays during the month of August. Summer Streets is an interesting experiment that makes you wonder what Richmond is waiting for -- in Carytown or on Broad Street (or perhaps on West Broad Street near Short Pump -- just for kicks):

In an interview  this morning with Fox 5, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg expressed hope — but not certainty — that the event would be a success:

Cars are important, but streets are there for everybody. And we’re going to try, for three days in a row — three Saturdays in a row — to see if the public wants to go out in the streets and reconnect with each other and bicycle and skateboard and walk and kibbitz and maybe a lot of restaurants will put tables out — something different.

He added: “This has been done in Bogotá for 30 years. They love it. It’s phenomenally popular and it probably will work here. If it doesn’t, at least we’ll have tried.”

The comments in the New York Times from Manhattanites who strolled the streets yesterday indicate that Summer Streets was a hit:

• Today was pure joy. It was great to take the train to Grand Central, step right out onto Park Avenue, and to blissfully skate the entire summer streets route (parts of it twice), plus the central park lower loop, for almost three perfect hours.

• New Yorkers were out in force, enjoying the great weather and wide, car-free thoroughfare. Restaurants and shops along Park Avenue seemed to be doing a brisk business. The atmosphere was festival-like, especially at the rest stops.

• Phenomenal. What a day. I’ve never seen so many smiling, happy, relaxed New Yorkers out on the street. I only wish that the event went longer and included more streets.

• I went on this ride today with my husband and 2 year old daughter (in a bike seat). It was wonderful! I gave a huge cheer as we exited the Brooklyn Bridge onto the car-free streets of Lower Manhattan. I had assumed that we wouldn’t make it very far into the 7 mile stretch, since it’s often so hard to navigate the streets with kids. But we made it all the way to Central Park and back home to Brooklyn in record time.

But as the city's own Summer Streets website shows, it wasn't just about closing streets. It was about creating a different kind of space for New Yorkers -- in addition to loads of pedestrians, cyclists and skaters out-and-about, the Summer Streets experience emphasized outside dining, loads of street entertainment, tours of historic and cultural sites, and workshops on bike safety and fitness.

So, what if several blocks of Grove and Patterson and Libby avenues were closed on Saturdays and a street festival erupted in the Near West End? Or if Carytown shut down vehicle traffic once a month and threw a party -- instead of doing it once a summer? Or if Cary Street was permanently closed to cars in Shockoe Slip from the Omni to 14th Street? How about throwing a party on the 9th Street Bridge with concerts downtown and in Manchester, and fireworks viewed from the bridge at night?

Maybe it is time, as Goldman suggested, "to unleash the potential of Carytown, and to do that, we need to throw out the old rules and open that stretch of Cary Street to the imagination, the ingenuity and the innovation that we need to take Richmond to the next level."

Why stop with Carytown, and why stop with periodic festivals in Carytown or on Broad Street? Isn't it time for Richmond to break a few molds?