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The empty city: Newbury Street, 9 p.m. on a Friday

Empty Newbury Street

Hank Layfield reports from Newbury Street tonight:

I never realized how wide this street actually is, never having seen it empty.

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Comments

Circled west on Boylston, back east on Newbury.

1) When did that Tom Brady store open? And does it stay open now that he's gone?

2) Best closed sign was posted at Lir.

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My son had a gig at the BPL in July and the TB store was in the final stages of construction.

I would guess it will hang around until no one cares anymore....so maybe 3 months?

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Perfect. Make it pedestrian only. No more losers racing their daddy’s car down a super pedestrian heavy car avenue.

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Rich suburbanites and Bostonians drive there to shop.

They're not taking the T or biking really.

Many, many, stores /restaurants on Newbury wouldn't survive if the street were closed to traffic.

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The number of metered parking spaces on that street is tiny compared to the number of shoppers. The only reasons people need to drive on this street are to make deliveries or to go in and out of garages.

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Right, because the thousands of people who shop on that street on a typical hour of a typical day all park in the ~200 or so on-street parking spaces.

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Just stop the daily vitriol of car, truck hate! This isn't just a shopping playground and tourist destination: people actually live on Newbury. Newbury St. needs to be open for ambulances, firetrucks. Do you think CVS should be banned from having delivery trucks supply much needed medicine to their pharmacy? There's a fire station at Boylston and Hereford which is right around the corner from Newbury. Would you prefer fireman ride bicycles on their way to apartment buildings going up in flames?

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Think this one through. What blocks emergency vehicles from getting places quickly? Answer: automotive traffic.

If you actually care about the speed by which ambulances and fire trucks (and busses) can travel, you'd want more roads closed to personal vehicles.

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the first refuge of car drivers is always "but who will think about the emergency vehicles?!?!"

kind of like "won't someone think of the children?!?"

it's sure easier to get 5 pedestrians quickly out of the way of an ambulance than it is 5 vehicles..

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Emergency vehicles seem to prefer driving through downtown crossing vs. neighboring streets. Why? Because there's basically zero chance of getting stuck in traffic...

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Clearly you've never actually been on Newbury St., or you'd know traffic is so slow that you could never race on it.

Except on those days where they ban all cars.

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The road section of Newbury Street is disgustingly wide given how narrow the sidewalks are in parts. This should be a pedestrian shopping street, not the parking lot/extended highway onramp/Uber idling zone that it is today.

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Shortsighted people no cars. I see fewer jobs, no economic activity, people not able to support their families and people not socializing.

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If you look closer, you'll also see the most important thing: people helping contain the spread of a deadly virus. People tightening their belts and doing what they can to keep the community safe.

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By closing Newbury St. and announcing it as open for cyclists, joggers and the like, it will invite large crowds of people, as it does during the highly popular summer closures, which is exactly what we are trying to avoid in order to stop the spread of the virus.

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To do what exactly? Shop at all of the closed shops and eat at all of the closed restaurants?

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