Quote:
Originally Posted by dfiler
CMU is incredibly pedestrian friendly once within the campus.
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I guess that depends on what you mean by "pedestrian friendly". There aren't a lot of cars, so that's good. Otherwise, though, you have a lot of overly-large open spaces, very long paths, large set-backs, unwelcoming facades, buildings not at a "human scale", and so on. All of that is contributing to communicate to pedestrians, "Unless you have official business here, you don't belong in this space."
To be fair, as previously noted this is a common problem among campuses. But CMU's campus is an unfortunately good example.
For contrast, Point Park might have cars you have to watch out for, although most of that side of Downtown is actually pretty sleepy in terms of car traffic. Otherwise, I would suggest it generally scores as much more pedestrian friendly, largely because it is mostly made up of historic commercial buildings fronting right on the sidewalk.
Interestingly, I'd say the biggest "bust" in Point Park from that standpoint is the waterfall parklet (I think they call it "Village Park") at the corner of Wood and BoA. Currently it is the most traditional college-campusy space they have, and it again communicates in a variety of ways to pedestrians that they don't belong there. Unfortunately, I strongly suspect it will soon be rivaled by the new student theater complex.