The Role of Accessibility for the Success of City Centres 3
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ctbuh.org/papers Title: The Role of Accessibility for the Success of City Centres Author: Rolf Monheim, University of Bayreuth Subjects: Social Issues Urban Design Keywords: Urban Design Urban Planning Publication Date: 2001 Original Publication: CTBUH 2001 6th World Congress, Melbourne Paper Type: 1. Book chapter/Part chapter 2. Journal paper 3. Conference proceeding 4. Unpublished conference paper 5. Magazine article 6. Unpublished © Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat / Rolf Monheim URBAN SYSTEMS The Role of Accessibility for the Success of City Centres Rolf Monheim World-wide discussions about the success of city centres are focused on their accessibility. Generally, it is understood first of all as the accessibility for driving and parking cars. There prevails the attitude that this demand should be met without any restrictions. Therefore, there is a trend to continuously increase the infrastructure for car traffic. Regularly reoccurring shortages are not under- stood as a sign of a wrong concept but, to the contrary, a directive to continue the expansion. The common sentence “no parking no business” is misleading because it diverts the attention from the fact that first of all the excellence of a place determines the decision where to drive to. If a city centre is run down, even abundant parking will be unable to revitalise it, as can be seen in the USA. In Germany, in contrast, city centres were able to defend their prime role. This is due to the combination of various public and private measures. The city administration, on one hand, improved accessibility by public transport, because it realised that this was the only means to bring large numbers of visitors to a densely built up area; it also improved attractiveness by a good design of the public open spaces now free from car traffic. The landowners and retailers, on the other hand, made the best use of this chance by investing in a better business and improving city marketing. Nowadays, in Germany even new shopping com- plexes mainly choose integrated city centre locations! 1 THE ROLE OF ACCESSIBILITY The discussion of the role of accessibility generally is focused on the access from outside to the city centre, including parking. It underestimates the role of “internal accessibility”, i.e. the walk from the place of arrival to the various activity locations and then back to the place of departure (mostly a public trans- port stop or off-street car park) (Fig. 1). The main reason for this is the orienta- tion towards the “one-stop-shopping” of a suburban mall and the neglecting of the fact that most city centre visitors, at least in Europe, go to several destina- tions within the centre and like walking to them. The discussion of traffic infrastructure furthermore neglects the fact that it does not necessarily determine travel decisions as such but by the way that it is perceived. As a consequence, the marketing of accessibility is important. Unfortunately, for a long time complaints of retailers on poor car-accessibility have resulted in a negative perception among the citizens. However, surveys show that visitors rate accessibility much better than retailers believe. 238 Urban Systems External accessibility Internal accessibility Trip from the starting point to the city Trips after the arrival in the city centre centre to all activity locations until leaving the city centre – Access roads – Parking facilities – Pedestrian street – Public transport (net, stations and – Traffic calmed / shared street service) (without / with separation of – Access for pedestrians and cyclists vehicles and pedestrians) – Boulevard – Area with speed reduction Figure 1 Measures for the access to the city centre. Due to the limited availability of space for the construction of additional road- and parking infrastructure in densely built up areas a distinction has to be made between necessary and less necessary car use. The latter refers especially to commuters. This is because of the long parking duration and the problems of the rush-hour. In Germany, therefore off-street car parks for new office buildings in a city centre with good accessibility by public transport are permitted mostly only in a limited number. Instead of this, employees may get tickets for public transport at a reduced fee; this is also less expensive for the employer. The parking needs of visitors now are often served better by guidance-systems that show the availability of parking, as well as by other means of parking manage- ment. This requires a cooperation of all parking providers. Traffic calming and pedestrianization often result in a reduction of on- street parking sites. This regularly causes complaints by local shop owners. A survey by the Association of Large and Medium-sized Retailers, however, Figure 2 Change in customer numbers after change in nearby parking capacity due to traffic calming measures. Monheim – The Role of Accessibility 239 showed that even out of those retailers that had suffered some reduction in nearby parking capacity 59% noticed an increase in customer numbers against only 23% noticing a decrease (Fig. 2). Increases would occur even more often if car-parking were managed more adequately, i.e. if the parking duration would be limited and more effectively controlled (see Monheim, ed., 1989). The “internal accessibility” can be improved first of all by pedestrian precincts. Within the last 30 years, in Germany they have expanded enormously up to more than thousand. In the beginnings, they were introduced only in streets with the highest concentration of large shops and pedestrian volumes. It was feared that otherwise people would have to walk too long distances. Later, the great popularity of pedestrian precincts encouraged planners and politicians to expand them step by step, in many cases up to networks of 4–9 km streetlength. 2 NUREMBERG AS AN EXAMPLE FOR GOOD URBAN DESIGN Nuremberg, the centre of the Middle-Franconian conurbation, is a good example (490,000 and 1.2 million residents respectively; for details see Monheim 1996(b), 1997(a) and 2000). The city centre had been almost totally destroyed during World War II and was reconstructed after controversial debate in accordance to the histor- ical pattern. Only a few streets were widened for car traffic. In 1966 for the first time car traffic was banned from a shopping street (Fig. 3). It was a great success. Therefore six years later the city councillors decided to expand the pedestrian precinct to include large parts of the shopping district. Finally, the city centre was divided into five traffic precincts where cars could not drive directly from one to the other. This reduced traffic volumes within the city without endangering accessibil- ity. In 1996, a new conservative city government reopened some small connecting streets; however, car drivers meanwhile had learned that they do not need to drive around so much within the centre and use these connecting streets quite rarely. What were the results? Traffic engineers had warned that the closure of roads with heavy traffic crossing the city centre would provoke chaos. But only 20–30% of the previous volume of traffic showed up on the remaining streets. The parking facilities were left nearly unchanged, but they were better organised in favour of visitors and residents, discouraging commuters. Retailers had warned that the city centre would be cut off from its poten- tial visitors. But their numbers increased clearly; many were attracted from large distances, especially on Saturday. This resulted from several factors. A new subway and parking management improved accessibility from outside and 9 km pedestrian streets improved the internal accessibility. Many new shops opened, the most important ones KARSTADT with 24,100 m2 and a shopping centre with 12,200 m2 (several more are under construction). A good design of public open spaces as well as changing lifestyles encouraged the expansion of street cafés and restaurants. A multiplex-cinema with nearly 5,000 seats and, in addi- tion, restaurants for 1,200 guests added to the entertainment function. A large number of museums, theatres and other cultural institutions strengthened the identity of the city centre. They became connected by a “Culture Mile” and a “Historical Mile”. Their route was advertised through large billboards. A city 240 Urban Systems Figure 3 Main infrastructure for accessibility in the city centre of Nuremberg. management was introduced in public-private-partnership, supporting the attrac- tivity of the city centre by a great variety of events. This broad mix of shopping, recreation and culture has led to an organically developed urban entertainment centre. This may be seen as a model contrasting with the new urban entertain- ment centres in the USA as planned and managed by one single developer. The example of Nuremberg demonstrates the necessity to subordinate car traffic according to the needs and capacities of the city centre and to put great emphasis on good public transport. This makes it possible to strengthen the internal accessibility by a sophisticated system of pedestrian streets which connect the various activity areas. 3 ACTIVITIES AND PREFERENCES OF CITY CENTRE VISITORS Successful urban design depends very much on its suitability for the needs of the city users. Surveys demonstrate how they behave and what they prefer. Each of the five cities presented in this paper has its own character which modifies the general trend (for more details see Monheim, 1998 and 2000, Monheim et al. 1998). Monheim – The Role of Accessibility 241 Lübeck (217,000 residents, close to the Baltic Sea Coast)) has a large old city located on an island and declared as “World Cultural Heritage”. In 1989 it started a stepwise traffic calming process, limiting for residents access to and parking in large parts of the city centre. Several other streets are accessible for cars only at certain hours, whereas only a few streets give unlimited access.