Pedestrian malls in the United States

Pedestrian malls, also known as pedestrian streets, are the most common form of pedestrian zone in large cities in the United States. They are typically streets lined with storefronts and closed off to most automobile traffic. Emergency vehicles may have access at all times and delivery vehicles may be restricted to either limited delivery hours or entrances on side streets.

"Pedestrian mall" as a term is most often used in the United States and Australia. "Pedestrian street" and "Pedestrian zone" are the more common terms worldwide.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, many mid-sized U.S. cities installed pedestrian malls in their downtown areas, as a response to increasing traffic jams and the commercial success of self-contained edge-of-town shopping malls.

In 2009, there were at least 75 pedestrian malls in the U.S. Besides the Kalamazoo Mall, some notable examples are the Church Street Marketplace in Burlington, Vermont; the Downtown Mall in Charlottesville, Virginia; the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica, California; the Fremont Street Experience in Las Vegas, Nevada; the Buffalo Place Main Street Pedestrian Mall in Buffalo, New York; Ithaca Commons in Ithaca, New York; the Pearl Street Mall in Boulder, Colorado; St. Charles, Missouri; Salem, Massachusetts; Ped Mall in Iowa City, Iowa; Lincoln Road in Miami Beach, Florida; the Fulton Mall in Fresno, California; the K Street Mall in Sacramento, California; the 16th Street Mall in Denver, Colorado; State Street in Madison, Wisconsin; Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, Minnesota; The Grove in Los Angeles, California; Fort Street Mall in Honolulu, Hawaii; City Center in Oakland, California; Walnut Street in Des Moines, Iowa, Downtown Crossing and Faneuil Hall/Quincy Market in Boston; Washington Street Mall in Cape May, New Jersey; The Downtown Cumberland Mall in Cumberland, Maryland; and more recently former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg worked hard over his final term in office to create pedestrian malls in major tourist centers that had also been areas of severe automobile congestion such as Times Square and Herald Square, and many others around the country. Typically these downtown pedestrian malls were three or four linear blocks simply blocked off to private street traffic, with fountains, benches, planters that doubled as seating areas, bollards, playgrounds, interfaces to public transit and other amenities installed to attract shoppers.

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