What Happens to the (Holyoke) Mall?

Today I visited Western Massachusetts' foremost shopping center, the Holyoke Mall at Ingleside.  I went to this regional mall countless times growing up.  If the nearby one-story Eastfield Mall didn't have what you wanted, or you really wanted to make shopping an activity rather than a task, you went to the Holyoke Mall.  Built in 1979, this retail behemoth dealt the killer blow to our downtown department stores.  (Chances are good that if you grew up in suburban or rural Western Massachusetts, you probably weren't even aware as a child that Holyoke had a real city center with brick and stone multi-story buildings).  Climate-controlled, easily accessible by the automobile, and offering all the stores you could want in one location, the mall has been the retail venue of choice since its inception.

Thing is, I don't like malls much.  Like many others, I've learned that they're built upon the unsustainable foundation of cheap oil.  Patrons of the Holyoke Mall don't drive there just from Springfield (8 miles away), they come from places like my suburban-rural hometown of Wilbraham (20 mi), Greenfield (32 mi), and no doubt well into Vermont (more than 50 mi).  Over the past half-century, we have consolidated and centralized our retail centers into huge shopping centers only accessible by automobile and paltry bus service shunned by white, middle-class customers.  As a result, malls have a huge carbon footprint.

So what's the answer?  Today's urban planners, many of whom subscribe to the theory of New Urbanism, would like to see a resurgence of our traditional mixed-use city centers.  Shops on the ground level, offices and housing above.  Currently, Northampton has the only lively downtown with stores lining the street.  The shops are cute and many do pretty well, but they're just little boutiques.  What if you want to buy a pair of socks?

Holyoke and Springfield find themselves in quite a conundrum.  One answer would be to move the mall downtown, where it would be closer to where people actually live.  That won't work at the Holyoke Mall's current scale, nor anything close to it, because the mall depends on attracting customers from an entire region--not just a city.  Today, there's no way for most people to reach the center of Springfield or Holyoke except by automobile.  So you could move the parking downtown, but how would the city streets handle all that traffic?  The Holyoke Mall depends on two interstate highways (I-90 and I-91) and the six-lane Holyoke Street to feed it.  Basically, the Holyoke Mall is a monster.  It is unsustainable not just in its location but in its size.

For those of you who wonder what my work might be as an urban planner, this is a prime example of one of the huge problems people of my profession have been tasked to solve.

What's my ideal vision for shopping in Western Massachusetts?  The anchor stores (Macy's, Sears, Target, Best Buy) would embrace urban store designs for Main Street in Springfield and High Street in Holyoke.  (Some chains are showing that they're willing to adopt an urban format, but at this point only in large cities).  The real estate is certainly available in Holyoke in many sizes and forms.  The stores would have to be smaller and more efficient with their use of space.  If the cost of gasoline rises to $5 or above, the PVTA might consider light rail in the region.  Those who cannot travel to downtown Springfield or Holyoke by foot, bicycle, or bus would do so by tram or train.

Then there's the question of how to get those suburbanites to fill abandoned buildings and construct on vacant land in the city.  And what do we do with the mall, which apparently has some significant period-significant details like that UFO-style lighting, the geodesic dome, the wooden benches and planters?  Perhaps someday it can be transformed into a new town center.  The answers aren't all there yet, but in challenges such as these I see great opportunity.

Critical Mass Boston

This past Friday evening I participated in an event called Critical Mass, with the purpose to celebrate cycling and assert cyclists' right to the road.  In Boston, bicyclists hold a ride on a last Friday of every month, starting at Copley Square in the Back Bay.  There are no organizers.  I heard about the event from some fellow Brandeisians through Facebook.  I'd never done any real urban riding before, so naturally I felt anxious as I sat with my Schwinn on the Commuter Rail, waiting to arrive in Boston.  Since I work at WalkBoston Fridays, I rode the bike over to Old City Hall and locked it up outside the office.  Making it from North Station without incident felt like quite an accomplishment! 

After work when it came time to ride over to Copley, I realized how disoriented I felt bicycling rather than walking around the city.  Suddenly I had to deal with a bunch of one-way streets and I lacked the time to think about my direction at each intersection.  When I arrived at Copley Square there were already a number of cyclists, many with single-gear or fixie bikes, others with modified road cycles, and a whole bunch of people in costume for Halloween.  I felt silly with my mountain bike.  I ran into a fellow I met at the HONK!Fest and we chatted for a bit.  Again, no one was in charge, so we just had to wait until someone started riding and then follow. 

With over 100 cyclists, we took over the streets of downtown Boston.  It was simply amazing and brought a huge grin to my face.  Instead of being pushed to the margins, we owned the road.  Collective action gave us the right to ride in freedom.  Instead of thinking about the car behind me or the intersection ahead, I could actually take in the sights and lights of the city.  And the pavement--so smooth!  The automobiles have it so good.  We blew through the red lights, with people physically blocking the cars along the way.  It was brilliant, and sooo satisfying to stick it to the faceless, polluting cars.  Still, the whole thing was rather self-indulgent.  We made it nearly impossible for pedestrians to cross the streets, and that brought on a little guilt.  While it's not right to act as the automobile drivers do and selfishly take up the entire street, I don't think it really hurts anyone to do it for an hour or two once a month.  I'll be sure to participate again.

Massachusetts: Too Conservative?

Sure, Massachusetts leads when it comes to civil rights or protecting the environment, but I've learned during my time as a planner-in-training that when it comes to transportation, the Commonwealth is quite conservative.

Yesterday at work, I spoke with a colleague about the state and possible reconstruction of Longfellow Bridge, also known as the Salt-and-Pepper-Shaker Bridge due to the shape of its central towers, between Boston and Cambridge.  The current configuration of the bridge, the cross-section of which you can view here, includes the MBTA Red Line running in 27' down the middle, two vehicle travel lanes on each side taking up between 48' and 51'8", a 3'-3'6" shoulders doubling as bicycle lanes, and a sidewalk of 10' on one side and 6' on the other.

The first problem is the narrower sidewalk, which while at some points has 6 feet of width, narrows down to about 2 feet at one point with a light pole right in the middle.  The second problem relates to the cars.  The bridge, considering its location, carries very few cars.  Around twice as many people pass over the bridge using mass transit than private automobiles.  This begs the question, why are there four vehicle travel lanes?  Not only is such a mix unsustainable, it's also unnecessary.  I understand that there needs to be enough room for one vehicle to pass another in emergencies, but that does not necessitate another whole travel lane.

Make less room for cars and what do you get?  Fewer cars.  Longfellow desperately needs to be reconstructed, so let's transform Longfellow Bridge into a 21st century travel way, with one vehicle travel lane each way, wide bicycle lanes and wide sidewalks.  None of the proposed alternatives include closing vehicle lanes permanently.  However, as my co-worker pointed out, vehicle travel will be reduced to one lane each way for prolonged periods during construction--why not just leave it like that?

The Red Line will also require shifting during the rebuild, which will be very expensive.  Instead of shifting the tracks multiple times to get it back in its original position, shift them just once or twice and use the opportunity to  change the configuration.  Change one side of the bridge into a dedicated way for pedestrians and bicyclists and leave the other side for cars.  The Longfellow already offers the best view of Boston--you'd even be able to turn it into a tourist attraction!  Unfortunately the City of Boston and the Massachusetts Highway Department lack the vision to make the change.  It makes me wonder whether I could do transportation planning in the Commonwealth without becoming horribly frustrated in trying to fight the culture. 

Other examples of conservative transportation planning: PVTA won't consider light rail, the MBTA insists on bus rapid transit instead of new subways and won't electrify the commuter rail, and the legislature won't consider raising the gas tax.  Boston still lags on bicycle policy & action, and I'm not sure that the idea occurs to a single public official to substitute street parking for real bicycle lanes or even to restructure street parking pricing.