Walking Street added Sept 20, 2023:  Stone Street, Manhattan, NYC

What is a Linear Park?

“Linear Park” is a phrase that means different things to different people. Some view it as an oasis of greenery and open walking space in a dense urban concrete desert, as the linear parks in Chicago and New York City might be. It can be an active recreation and meeting area, with grass and benches and children’s playgrounds. It can be a form of an outside mall, with small shops and restaurants lining the edges.

Here in Arcata, for what we’ve been calling the “L Street Corridor,” there are certain constraints and many opportunities. The linear park cannot be closed to all car traffic, as there are existing apartment buildings, homes, and business parking lots that need vehicular access. So that makes a linear park here more along the lines of the “Woonerf” concept, where cars and pedestrians and children and cyclists share a paved or partially paved surface. In a woonerf, cars are limited to perhaps 5 mph (or a walking pace), and pedestrians have the right of way. For more on Linear Parks and the Dutch Woonerf concept on Arcata1.com, click here.  

Images of Linear Parks and Woonerfs

Send in your images! If you find a linear park image that you feel would be suitable for Arcata, please send it in to fred at Arcata1.com.

Below are some images of Linear Park and Woonerf streets and concepts. What’s here is limited to concepts and designs that could be incorporated here in Arcata, more or less. That is, these images are not a compendium of linear parks from around the world — just what might apply to us.

These images are just for ideas. What other cities have done is included here for our interest — not to copy them.

The existing L Street Pathway and the blocks of the L Street Corridor that are around the Creamery are so delightful in their current state. (And a big thank-you for everyone who helped create these wonderful parts of Arcata, to get us to this point.) We can all gain from an increased recognition of our jewel here.

The 2010 Rail with Trail Feasibility Study

This is the best place to start — with what a large group of planners, urban specialists, engineers, and Arcata’s Environmental Services Department and Public Works Department came up with. In total, a 13-person Steering Committee and 28 representatives from 19 local organizations or agencies came up with this plan. The six-page section that relates to the L Street Corridor and the full 160-page document can be seen here on Arcata1.com. The image below was used as the cover of the full document.

The suggestion is not that this plan be used as-is, as it is shown. It’s a starting point for our design and discussion. For one thing, these plans show the old railroad tracks to be included in the design — just in case they might be used in the future, say, for a light-rail transit line. A new design might want to have those tracks be removed.

This image is from the 2010

In this design, there is a 15 foot wide “multi-use” street section. That would likely be a very-low traffic use one-way designation. Unlike the current City one-lane actual high-traffic street design– see here — there’d be enough room for an emergency vehicle to get by a stalled vehicle, by going on the sidewalk or the refuge area a foot or two.

Santa Barbara: Paseo Nuevo

This is an outside mall concept. Some vehicle access is provide for deliveries to those small storefronts that do not have rear-alley access. This is a private development on private property, so they can pretty much do what they wanted. Note the typical two-story building heights alongside the open area, or buildings with deep upper-floor step-backs, to allow a feeling of open sky.

Park Lane – Kirkland, Washington

Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Pearl Street, Boulder, Colorado

Toronto, Canada

Note the perpendicular parking. In the 50-foot right-of-way that Arcata has for the L Street Corridor, there could be room for some small amount of perpendicular parking, on one side only.

Madison, Wisconsin

Wynwood, South Florida
Clematis Street, West Palm Beach, Florida

An artist’s rendering. Shows a new street, with modern buildings.

Clematis Street, West Palm Beach, Florida

Argyle Street, Chicago

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Stone Street, Manhattan, NYC

A pedestrian-only street in the heart of the financial district of New York City

This walking street is exactly what Arcata needs and wants, right? Beer, barbecue, and bourbon from the Route 66 Steakhouse.

Snow globes on Stone Street in the Wintertime.