16th Street Mall in Denver

3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica

Street Musicians, 3rd Street Promenade

Downtown Crossing, Boston

16th Street Mall in Denver

16th Street Mall in Denver

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Johnny N posted a similar idea - but I wanted to suggest a more complete transformation of Main Street into a pedestrian mall, like 3rd street in Santa Monica, or Downtown Crossing in Boston, or 16th street Mall in Denver. It would be completely closed off to auto traffic all the time - a 100% pedestrian mall, from the court house to the convention center. 4th through 7th streets would remain open as cross-streets for cars. Basically, it would be like the Main Street Arts Festival, but less crowded.

Main Street is perfect for this. Because both ends are blocked off at the north and south, car traffic is already very light along the street. There's already better ways to drive to wherever you need to get to downtown. And it's a beautiful street already, with the red bricks, and all the shops fronting the road. And you can look up and see the courthouse (a really cool old building that is iconic of Fort Worth) from wherever you are along the street. I think it would be a very popular and successful pedestrian mall, and really bring people in to all the downtown shops. Especially with great improvements that are being done at Sundance Square right now, this would bring all that energy all the way down Main Street.

The beauty of this idea is how well it fits with all the other ideas people have suggested - food vendors, street performers, international-friendly. Having Main Street as a pedestrian zone makes room for all those things to happen, and it really wouldn't affect car access to downtown at all. You could have horse-drawn carriages up and down the road, or you could have a free bus that goes back and forth. Can't go wrong with this idea.