MTA sets sights on Broadway

The street's fortunes have ebbed and flowed along with most of downtown. And now, as a loft and condo boom brings thousands more residents to the area, transportation officials are considering a bold effort to remake Broadway.

They are talking about converting portions of the street into a transit mall, widening the sidewalks and allowing only transit buses on the street.

The idea of remaking the bustling shopping district -- now an eclectic mix of stores and restaurants, mostly aimed at a Latino clientele, and a dozen or so historic movie theaters -- is hardly new.

An almost identical plan was proposed and eventually abandoned in 1977.

But lately, the transit mall concept is getting another chance -- thanks in part to the changing face of downtown.

"It was time we took a fresh look at how we serve downtown," said Ed Clifford, director of service planning for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

The agency's plan, he said, is "part of a larger discussion on downtown, about the role transit would play in its future. The city is trying to beautify it, and this could possibly line up with some of those things. So what we are doing is shopping it around."

Under the plan, which is still preliminary, the street would be closed to traffic between 2nd and 9th streets, except for buses and delivery trucks. Officials would rework the sidewalks and streetscapes to encourage pedestrian traffic along a street that is already one of the city's most heavily trafficked on foot.

When city planners floated a similar plan 30 years ago, as part of an effort to revitalize downtown's east side, an artist's rendering showed widened sidewalks with double and triple rows of street trees, as well as parking bays for the buses to make their stops.

But Clifford said the plan never got off the ground -- in part because of concerns about how it would affect parking for the theaters' customers.

Although most of the theaters have closed, some Broadway merchants now echo similar concerns.