Safe Passages in Downtown Tacoma
Downtown Tacoma has had, for several decades, pedestrian walkways that connect Pacific to Commerce to Broadway. These routes allow people to move between extremely long city blocks. Unfortunately, I can’t think of a time that I’ve used them or I’ve seen others on them. Today, the Tacoma Daily Index has an interview with Erik Bjornson and Ko Wibowo about their idea to re-imagine these passageways.
INDEX: What are the problems with the walkways, specifically?
WIBOWO: To be safe, you should be able to see somebody else. Some of it has hidden areas. Some areas are reinforced by the fact that nobody is on the street. It’s empty so nobody uses it.
BJORNSON: I think our worst one is between Pacific Avenue and Commerce Street. It’s a beautiful walkway. City employees have done a great job of keeping up all the plants and things like that. But there are many blind spots in it, so pedestrians can’t see what’s through there. If you can’t see all the way through, you don’t feel safe. Consequently, it’s not used much. There’s many, many blind spots in it. It needs to be opened up so you can see around it. Police can’t monitor it. You can’t see it, it’s not open, you don’t know where you are going. Even a straight staircase, even if it was boring, would draw more pedestrians than the way it is designed now.
Bringing life to these downtown corridors can only help.
Link to the Tacoma Daily Index