Thoughts on closing Kirkwood to vehicles
Casually dismissing people with limited mobility is selfish and poor representation of taxpayers.
The Bloomington City Council is dominated 9-0 by Democrats, but this does not mean that there is always agreement among those Democrats. This was seen on June 10, when the council voted 5-4 to close Kirkwood to vehicular traffic every year from April to November. Previously, it had been a decision by the Mayor, and started during the COVID-19 pandemic.
On a personal level, I like the idea of closing the street. I am regularly on Kirkwood and it is really nice to not need to worry about automobiles other than at the cross streets. These can still be dangerous, so it would be interesting to see a study of vehicle/pedestrian incidents at those cross streets when Kirkwood is closed and when it was open. I was hit by a car in 2003 crossing Dunn.
But the thing about public policy is it's not always about what benefits me personally. There are people who will be very limited in their ability to go to Kirkwood. One person testified at the hearing that because her mobility is more limited as she gets older, she may not be able to go to Kirkwood any more. One city councilor dismissed the idea that older people cannot walk or bike because he is in his 60's and can do that, but that ignores the lived experience of many Bloomingtonians.
The vast majority of people in Bloomington live too far away to realistically walk or bike to Kirkwood, especially if they have a disability. Foot traffic on Kirkwood is great, but the reality is that cars bring people. Once the cars get there, they will need a place to park. Bloomington has always had problems with parking availability, and eliminating all vehicular traffic for seven months will compound that problem and make it more difficult for people who have limited mobility.
The talk of making Kirkwood a pedestrian paradise is stained with hypocrisy, after removing the stop signs on Seventh Street a few years ago. Uninhibited traffic on 7th made it much more dangerous for people who live north of 7th to make it to Kirkwood safely, because unless you walked all the way to Indiana Avenue or Walnut Street, there was no break in vehicular traffic for pedestrians to go north or south safely. Thankfully, the city finally corrected this dangerous policy and restored the stop signs.
Of course, the city has not addressed one of the biggest problems keeping people away from Kirkwood, or downtown generally: Homeless people who are drug addicts or mentally ill or both are a safety concern for many people in Bloomington. Seminary Square Park has become no-go zone with thousands of needles picked up in that park alone over the last few years. The city's weakness has forced downtown businesses to either shut down or move to Ellettsville, where the Republicans who run the town actually have some common sense.
In theory, closing Kirkwood to vehicular traffic is an idea worth exploring, but Bloomington does not yet have the necessary surrounding infrastructure to allow people to get to Kirkwood or the political will to make people safe once they are there. Putting this in city code as a mandatory annual closure is a mistake.