Championed by Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall and the City Transportation Division, the “Stay Safe, Stay Active!” initiative enables pedestrians and cyclists to exercise safely by limiting vehicular through-traffic in a limited number of city streets.
Approximately 6,200 residents completed an online survey that the city distributed to gauge the public’s interest in this initiative. Among the nearly 1,900 respondents who provided comments, 76% were in “general support” for the initiative.
We were surprised to see a recent commentary published in the Salt Lake Tribune presenting misleading information about the survey data released by the city. George Chapman, the author of this piece, used inaccurate information to suggest the city ignored the will of its residents.
We’re here to say that, as residents of Salt Lake City, Chapman doesn’t represent us and likely many other residents (as shown by the survey). We support the actions taken to give people more space on their streets during this pandemic as well as after.
It’s not hard to find ample evidence that shows moving away from car-first urban planning benefits individual residents, neighborhoods and business owners. One just might have to decide they’d like to see the truth.
A study of Sunday Streets San Francisco, when that city opens some streets to people outside of cars, found positive effects for businesses, with increased revenue, sales, employment and customer visitation. Researchers found similar success in Madrid, Spain. These programs could act as a model for Park City, which is considering a similar concept for its Main Street, and potentially for Main Street in Downtown Salt Lake City.
We even have some local evidence, with 300 South (Broadway) in Salt Lake City, that reallocating space for people and businesses can increase sales and activity Downtown. Broadway received one of the city’s only protected bike lanes under former Mayor Ralph Becker, a decision that was controversial at the time. But businesses have found success on Broadway after the changes made on that central downtown street. Ridership increased with the new lanes, as did sales for businesses on Broadway when compared to businesses elsewhere. (Chapman was against that change, for the record.)
A few tweaks could make Salt Lake City’s “Stay Active, Stay Safe!” even better. First, we agree that more community engagement might have helped, but we also acknowledge that open streets are a temporary solution that had to be implemented rather quickly. And lately, the city has put signage to inform residents about soon-to-come open streets a few days before their opening, a welcome addition to the program.
Second, the first open street in the city was in the underserved West Side. But recently, most open streets are on the East Side, reflecting historic inequities in access to health-promoting spaces in Salt Lake City. We can do better to extend the benefits of this program to the places that might need it the most.
Third, open street initiatives need to extend beyond transportation and integrate the work of several city units, including Economic Development and Planning, and business organizations. This multi-sectoral approach can, for example, help restaurants gain much-needed outdoor space in streets and parking lots, as done in several U.S. cities.
The city should continue opening streets throughout this pandemic and collect local evidence about the impacts of this initiative. And we think that the City Council should allow the Transportation Division to implement permanent traffic calming measures that make residents safer and happier on their neighborhood streets.
Alessandro Rigolon
Alessandro Rigolon is an assistant professor in the Department of City and Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah.
Taylor Anderson
Taylor Anderson is a co-founder of the street advocacy group Sweet Streets, and writes for the real estate news site BuildingSaltLake.com.