Shopping is for pedestrians

All over the world, and all over the United States, shopping is for pedestrians.

Shopping is for pedestrians.

In cities throughout the world, the primary place to shop is a car-free pedestrian shopping street. The same is true in America: it’s called a shopping mall. The difference is that in other countries shopping streets are right downtown, with thousands of offices and apartments right upstairs, and commuters pass through them twice a day on the tram going to and from work; our shopping streets are in other tax districts out by the highway, surrounded by vast parking lots, accessible only by car and a frustrating drive in congested traffic.

Old Orchard Mall, Skokie, 1957.

You would never want cars driving down a shopping street in Europe any more than you’d want to let cars drive inside a shopping mall in America. When we shop, we want to be around people, not cars. We want to stroll among other people in a safe, non-threatening pedestrian environment. 

Pedestrian-priority transit-optimized shopping street.