The report represents the second phase of a two-phase project designed to acquaint the planning community with the concept of transit malls and to provide information about three of the most important and interesting transit mall projects to a wider audience. The first phase of the study consisted of a site report: Streets For Pedestrians and Transit: Examples of Transit Malls in the United States (PB-278 487), which described the characteristics and histories of six transit malls. This second evaluation phase is more analytic in nature and quantities the benefits and disbenefits of the three major transit malls in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; in Minneapolis, Minnesota; and in Portland, Oregon. The transit malls in each of these cities was first reviewed in the site report. This evaluation is concerned with the impact of the three malls on pedestrians, on transit service, on excluded or restricted general traffic, and on economic conditions, particularly on retail sales in the immediate vicinity of the mall. This report contains the results of analysis on the following topics: maintenance and construction costs; transit service improvement including bus speed, reliability, coverage, capacity, ridership, productivity, and system understanding; the level of service provided pedestrians and waiting transit patrons; environmental impacts; pedestrian and bicyclist safety; traffic diversion; parking; goods delivery; and economic impacts. This report documents fifteen major conclusions regarding the transit malls.
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