This summer, for the first time, Seattle banned cars in the Pike Place Market :
Last year (2024), some politicians said no one will shop here anymore if it's pedestrianized :
https://publicola.com/2024/04/02/dont-open-pike-place-to-pedestrians-council-member-urges/
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Lol wtf. I've lived in Seattle most of my life now, and have known Pike Place Market since I first moved here in the early 90s. And that strip of road down there NEVER should have been a road. Seattle needs to just mark it off and have it be foot traffic only.
That also being said, there's something to it though, being crammed on the sidewalk in the pouring rain, alongside a million other people on this tiny little sidewalk, around all the various hidden and famous shops and importers.
I don't think anybody actually thought closing the road from car traffic would negatively affect the market. You'd have to be a vitriolic idiot to actually believe that. That's like saying having a bus service Disneyland would make people less likely to go. It just doesn't make sense.
Yeah, I live in Seattle and have been to Pike Place many a time. Having cars down there was fucking deranged. Neither the pedestrians nor the drivers could possibly have been happy about the situation.
It was like 70% tourists who were routed that way by Google maps. The terror on a Midwestern Grandma's face as she tried to navigate the road while pedestrians push within inches of her rental cars bumper was priceless.