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2013 Walking Summit
2013
Walking Summit
Barracks Row Main Street
Capitol Hill’s Leading Walkable Commercial Corridor
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2013 Walking Summit
2013
Walking Summit
Martin Smith
Executive Director
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•
Who Works with Walkable
Commercial Districts?
2013 Walking Summit
•What is a “Main Street”?
• What is a “Business Improvement District”?
• What are the general organizing principles of vibrant
commercial districts?
• Multi-modal transit
• Responsive to consumer transportation choices
• Example: Delivery of products / services
• Focus on pedestrian scale
• Solid mix of restaurants / retailers / services / residents
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2013 Walking Summit
Walkability and Business
• Why is walkability important to business owners?
• DC and other major cities have a high rate of car-free households,
and this number is growing among young families
• Parking can be a challenge in urban areas, so walkability benefits
drivers as well - park once and run several errands in a walkable
corridor instead of driving from store to store
• Pedestrian orientation lets businesses draw in more customers
overall - window displays are far more visible to a pedestrian than a
driver
• Walkable corridors also draw in more occasional customers consumers choose convenience and will use a business that is already
on the route they take between a destination and a transit option
they plan to use
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2013 Walking Summit
Lessons from Barracks Row
• Barracks Row had a complete streetscape rebuild in 2005
• As part of this rebuild, parking on the east side of the street was
angled to add additional spaces
• This meant there was not enough space for bike lanes, which could
have been provided with standard curbside parking on the east side
• Standard curbside parking would also have left additional space that
could have been used for wider sidewalks and bigger sidewalk cafes
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2013 Walking Summit
Lessons from Barracks Row
•
•Plan for the future!!
• As the corridor has evolved, we have a new need for bike facilities
• We also have five times as many sidewalk cafes now as we did in
2005 when the street was rebuilt
• Plan for the street you want, not one that meets your current needs
• If budgets are limited, at least plan for a “Phase 2” option even if it
will not be implemented right away
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2013 Walking Summit