Rocky proposes closing a block of Main Street to traffic

Instead of building a bridge over Main Street, Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson wants to close a block of the street to traffic.

In response to the City Council's 6-1 vote Tuesday to amend the city's downtown master plan to allow for above-ground pedestrian walkways, Anderson sent the council a memo today, saying the vote "conflicts with the city's long-standing commitment to protecting our view corridors and enlivening streets."

Anderson's memo says he will propose instead closing Main Street between 100 South and South Temple to traffic. The street is already closed one block north, between South Temple and North Temple, as part of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' Main Street Plaza.

The LDS Church's real-estate arm, Property Reserve Inc., wants the skybridge to connect the second level of shopping in its planned City Creek Center development. But Anderson and others say it will channel shoppers from one end of the project to the other without them ever having to walk along Main Street.

"The developer has expressed a concern with unifying the two halves of the development," said Anderson's spokesman, Patrick Thronson.

Closing the block to vehicle traffic "would be a way to unify the development, encourage pedestrian traffic between both halves of it and enhance the other efforts by the developer to make the mall more permeable to pedestrian traffic while still preserving the view corridor and allowing for more sidewalk activity," Thronson said.

The council's vote requires developers proposing skybridges to show that they won't block view corridors and that the bridge and the rest of the project are designed in a way to promote pedestrian activity at the street level.

The City Council would have final design approval.

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